Nashville, TN (April 20, 2023)—Mix Nashville: Immersive Music Production, an all-day event focused on the emerging technologies, techniques and artistic opportunities driving the surge in Dolby Atmos and Sony RA360 content, has announced its first programming offerings, with more to be announced in the coming weeks.
The event, which will take place along a one-block stretch of Nashville’s Music Row, followed by a nighttime networking party and listening sessions in nearby Berry Hill, will take place on Saturday, May 20, 2023, opening with a Keynote Conversation in the historic Columbia Studio A. Numerous top pro-audiobrands are involved with the event, so they will be on-hand, too. The Early Bird Registration Price ends on Saturday, April 22, so book now to secure your ticket for just $99!
Separate But Equal: The Stereo and Immersive Mixes
Which comes first? The stereo mix or the immersive mix? Or can they take place simultaneously? For many, stereo comes first, with the immersive mix becoming a “blown-up” version of the two-channel spread. For others, the immersive mix offers an opportunity for an entirely new approach to the song. Still others work on both at the same time. No matter the approach, all engineers agree that it should be the artist’s intent and vision that drives the process.
Panelists: Chuck Ainlay, Matt McClure, Jeff Balding and Will Kienzle
Moderator: Tom Kenny, Co-Editor, Mix
Monitoring the Mix: Speakers and Headphones
Nothing beats the experience of listening to an immersive mix on a properly tuned 7.1.4, 9.1.4, or even 13.1.6 monitor system, but statistics show that more than 90 percent of consumers will be listening through headphones or soundbars. For the mix engineer, headphones have become much more than a tool to “check” a mix or keep an ear on the binaural version; they’ve become an integral part of the production process, from the initial mix on through the approvals. With recent technology advances from Sony, Sennheiser, Apple and others, both mobile production and studio-based workflows are taking advantage and edging ever closer to providing an optimum consumer playback experience.
Panelists: Vance Powell, Pete Lyman and more to be announced
Mix Nashville: Immersive Music Production, to be held on May 20, 2023, alongside Music Row and in close by Berry Hill, has introduced that high-end pro-audio retailers Vintage King and Westlake Pro, together with top-level producers Avid, Grace Design and ADAM Audio, will probably be on-site as sponsors for the all-day occasion targeted on the rising applied sciences, strategies and inventive alternatives driving the surge in Dolby Atmos and Sony RA360 music content material.
“It’s been so encouraging to speak with the individuals at these firms over the previous few weeks,” says Tom Kenny, co-editor of Mix. “They’re those driving this speedy improvement in immersive music manufacturing—from a studio design perspective, a workflow perspective, and in serving to to teach engineers, producers and artists about what is feasible, each creatively and technologically. Next week we’ll be saying panelists and last programming, so it’s all coming collectively. As the expertise and expertise come collectively, it simply retains getting extra thrilling as we lead as much as May 20.”
The new spherical of sponsors are:
Vintage King: Pro audio retailer and design consultants on dozens of immersive music studios in Nashville, together with the famed Blackbird Studio C, the place they are going to be internet hosting listening classes within the night after the day on Music Row.
Avid: With the S6 and Pro Tools, Avid has been on the forefront of immersive music manufacturing from the start and can showcase its expertise in Blackbird Studio and alongside Music Row.
ADAM Audio: With a full immersive monitor system now in place, ADAM could have items readily available in the course of the day, then showcase the setup in its Berry Hill facility as a part of the nighttime Studio Crawl and Listening Sessions.
Westlake Pro: Backed by practically a decade of expertise working with engineers on immersive audio setups, the professional audio retailer and studio design consultants will arrange in Starstruck Studios in the course of the day and in their very own Berry Hill showroom at night time as a part of the Studio Crawl and Listening Sessions.
Grace Design: Eben and Michael Grace convey their intensive experience in all encompass and immersive codecs, together with their versatile, high-end and newly up to date M908 monitor controller, to Music Row.
The occasion, which is able to happen alongside a one-block stretch of Nashville’s Music Row, adopted by a nighttime networking get together and listening classes in close by Berry Hill, will open with a Keynote Conversation within the historic Columbia Studio A, adopted by a sequence of professional panels.
Mix Nashville: Immersive Music Production is produced along side Host Partners Curb Studios, Belmont University and Blackbird Studio.
During the day, Host Partner Curb Studios, together with Quonset Hut, Starstruck Studios, and Front Stage/Back Stage Studios, will characteristic a sequence of professional panels, undertaking profiles, expertise exhibitions and demonstrations, interviews with prime engineers and producers, immersive listening classes, and rather more.
At night time, the occasion strikes to the close by Berry Hill neighborhood for a celebration at world-renowned Blackbird Studio, along side a Studio Crawl that includes immersive music Listening Sessions at plenty of close by studios.
Mix Nashville: Immersive Music Production’s First Round of Sponsors
Nashville, TN (March 24, 2023)—Mix Nashville: Immersive Music Production, an all-day occasion targeted on the rising applied sciences, strategies and creative alternatives driving the surge in Dolby Atmos and Sony RA360 content material, has introduced the primary spherical of supporting sponsors, which embrace Solid State Logic, ATC, Symphonic Acoustics, NTP Technology and Wholegrain Digital Systems, with extra to be introduced within the coming weeks.
The occasion, which is able to happen alongside a one-block stretch of Nashville’s Music Row, adopted by a nighttime networking social gathering and listening periods in close by Berry Hill, will happen on Saturday, May 20, 2023, opening with a Keynote Conversation within the historic Columbia Studio A.
“It’s at all times a great signal when launching an occasion to have the primary few telephone calls find yourself in sponsorships,” says Tom Kenny, co-editor of Mix. “In this case, it tells me that these firms perceive the affect that immersive audio is having throughout the music trade. They additionally perceive that it is a massive alternative that’s nonetheless in its infancy, and there’s a want for schooling and the trade of data, each artistically and technologically. They can be bringing that experience, together with some top-notch programming, to Mix Nashville. We are definitely grateful for the assist.”
The first spherical of sponsors consists of:
Solid State Logic: SSL will showcase the System T console driving the brand new 7.1.4 immersive combine room at Starstruck Studios.
ATC (dist. by TransAudio Group): ATC will present its Dolby Atmos monitoring programs at Starstruck Studios and Blackbird Studio.
Symphonic Acoustics: The studio monitor producer, which collaborates with the legendary George Augspurger, will supply its latest displays for immersive mixing.
Wholegrain Digital Systems: A strong supporter of Mix immersive occasions, Duane Wise will present his high-end DynPEQ plug-in
NTP Technology (dist. By Plus 24): One of the pioneers in immersive audio routing and conversion, NTP will present the brand new AX64 and DAD Core 256, dubbed “the tiny immersive audio hero.”
Mix Nashville: Immersive Music Production is produced at the side of Host Partners Curb Studios, Belmont University and Blackbird Studio.
During the day, Host Partner Curb Studios, together with Quonset Hut, Starstruck Studios, and Front Stage/Back Stage Studios, will characteristic a sequence of professional panels, undertaking profiles, expertise exhibitions and demonstrations, interviews with prime engineers and producers, immersive listening periods, and way more.
At night time, the occasion strikes to the close by Berry Hill neighborhood for a celebration at world-renowned Blackbird Studio, at the side of a Studio Crawl that includes immersive music Listening Sessions at quite a few close by studios.
Psychotherapist Tamsin Embleton’s new ebook, Touring and Mental Health: The Music Industry Manual, arrives in bookstores in the present day.
New York, NY (March 23, 2023)—2022 was large for the touring business as artists and manufacturing execs powered by means of the primary full live performance season because the peak of the pandemic. While there have been document ticket gross sales and audiences had been thrilled to listen to stay music once more, there was additionally hardcore stress and nervousness for crews attributable to COVID issues, loopy schedules and lots of professionals merely not being emotionally able to return to the highway. While some artists canceledcompleteexcursions citing their psychological well being because the trigger, manufacturing personnel had been not often capable of step away for a similar motive, even when they knew that they had an issue.
However, recognizing potential psychological well being points, their causes and most significantly, methods to beat them could make manufacturing execs’ time on the highway easier and extra rewarding. With that in thoughts, psychotherapist Tamsin Embleton’s new ebook, Touring and Mental Health: The Music Industry Manual, (Omnibus Press; $56) hits bookstore cabinets in the present day, advising how professionals can finest assist themselves and fellow crewmembers [For insight on helping other touring pros, scroll down toSidebar: Lending A Hand…].
The world of stay music is one Embleton is aware of properly, having spent 10 years as a venue, pageant and occasion booker, artist supervisor and tour supervisor. “I used to be on the highway in Europe in 2010 after I first discovered that being a therapist within the music business could be a job I may pursue,” she says. “I used to be at a post-show dinner with Anna Calvi, Nick Cave and their respective band members—we had been on the highway with Grinderman—and Nick and I had been sharing remedy tales.”
Now a degreed and registered therapist, Embleton started researching the psychological impression of touring in 2016. At the time, there have been a number of research protecting musicians’ psychological well being, however few explored why so many artists and manufacturing staffers endure unwell well being on account of touring. Recognizing a necessity for insider recommendation, she started writing a guide that may deal with the difficulty head-on.
Six years later, Live Nation is concerned within the ebook as a sponsor (although it had no editorial enter) and greater than 80 high-profile musicians and veteran tour personnel have shared their insights and recollections for the tome, together with Event Safety Alliance co-founder Jim Digby; tour managers Trevor Williams and Angie Warner; and manufacturing managers Jake Berry and Dale ‘Opie’ Skjerseth.
Artists additionally share their hard-earned information within the ebook, together with Nile Rodgers, Justin Hawkins (The Darkness), Philip Selway (Radiohead), Katie Melua, Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), Will Young, Taylor Hanson (Hanson), Lauren Mayberry (Chvrches) and Pharoahe Monch; and lots of extra.
“It was nice to talk with Marty Hom [tour manager for Barbra Streisand, Fleetwood Mac and others] who gave some sensible examples of high-stress, high-risk conditions he had navigated on the highway,” stated Embleton. “I may discuss to Tina Farris [tour manager for The Roots, Chris Rock, Nicki Minaj and others] actually all day; she had lots to share and was actually open about what she’d learnt being a Black lady able of energy on the highway.”
The touring world is all about networking, so touring execs that Embleton interviewed typically related her to different prime names of their fields. The result’s 640 pages of perception and recommendation shared by friends and mentors. Designed to assist each longtime execs and people new to the sphere, it’s secure to say copies of Touring and Mental Health: The Music Industry Manual will get handed round tour buses and vans this summer time, and possibly begin some frank conversations as properly.
•. •. •. •. •
SIDEBAR: LENDING A HAND…
We requested psychotherapist Tamsin Embleton what manufacturing execs can do once they see friends having a tough time on the highway:
“Talk to the particular person you suppose could be struggling. Find a confidential area and identify what you’ve observed—a behavioral change, withdrawal, whether or not they appear low or anxious, maybe they’re not hanging out within the again lounge anymore, possibly they’re consuming or taking extra substances, they’re irritable, offended, etcetera.
“Listen very fastidiously to what they are saying is occurring for them. Don’t attempt to disprove it or hijack it with your individual experiences. Just pay attention and empathize. Sometimes listening is sufficient to alleviate a burden; different occasions, they could want to regulate one thing about the best way that they’re working or converse to an expert. Think collectively about what they want and what would assist in the brief and long run. If they would like to work with somebody within the music enterprise, organizations just like the Music Industry Therapist Collective can pair you with a specialist. The ebook’s ‘Mental Health Conversations and Crisis Management’ chapter by Whitney O’Malley, a psychotherapist who labored at document labels and with Linkin Park, advises what to do if somebody is in disaster—a panic assault, overdose, psychotic episode, manic episode, self-harming, suicidality—and shares tips on how to conduct conversations about psychological unwell well being.
“More broadly, employers can prioritize relaxation and sleep; supply better job safety; begin to shift the tradition round extra on the highway; reward good well being behaviors; present ‘dry’ dressing rooms and first rate alcohol-free drinks; and set time apart to contact household. We are relational creatures—we want significant contact to really feel secure and entire. Touring could make establishing and sustaining relationships actually troublesome, which may be destabilizing in and of itself, so there’s a entire part within the ebook devoted to addressing relationship challenges each on and off the highway.”
Steve Mackey in a nonetheless from the “Mis-Shapes” promo video from 1995’s Different Class. Photo: Island Records.
New York, NY (March 2, 2023)—U.Okay. various rock producer Steve Mackey has died on the age of 56. After first breaking into the music enterprise because the bassist for Nineties Britpop cornerstone Pulp, Mackey went on to carve out a formidable second act as a producer and songwriter, working with the likes of Florence + the Machine, Arcade Fire, Spiritualized, Willy Moon, M.I.A., The Pastels and Marianne Faithful, amongst many others. His passing was introduced on his Instagram account by his spouse, Katie Grand, who famous he had been within the hospital for 3 months with an undisclosed sickness.
Born November 10, 1966, in Sheffield, Mackey began out enjoying in storage bands and following Pulp from a distance because the native indie heroes recorded two albums to some discover within the mid-80s. Asked to hitch the group in 1989, he obliged and shortly Pulp’s third album, 1991’s Separations, did effectively sufficient that the act was scooped up by Island Records, paving the best way for its profession highpoint throughout three well-received albums—1994’s His’n’Hers; 1995’s Different Class, which spawned the hit single “Common People” and gained the 1996 Mercury Music Prize; and 1998’s This Is Hardcore. The group disbanded following its final album, We Love Life, in 2001, however reunited a number of occasions over time.
While Mackey grew to become more and more concerned within the group’s sound throughout his tenure, post-Pulp, he moved into manufacturing for others, co-writing and producing tracks for Florence + the Machine on that group’s first album, 2009’s Lungs, in addition to producing Arcade Fire’s 2017 assortment, Everything Now and Spiritualized’s 2018 effort, And Nothing Hurt. Outside of the recording trade, his manufacturing work could possibly be present in museums, too, as he created set up sound designs at The Louvre in Paris, MOMA in New York and the Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai.
When Pulp introduced final fall that it will reunite for a summer season 2023 tour, Mackey bowed out, wishing his bandmates effectively (he had labored repeatedly with frontman Jarvis Cocker within the intervening years for the reason that band’s preliminary finish). Mackey leaves behind his spouse, stylist/journalist Katie Grand; son Marley; dad and mom Katherine and Paul Mackey; and sister Michelle.
Michael Wagener in his studio, WireWorld 2.0, in an undated promotional photo for Eve Audio. Eve Audio
Nashville, TN (April 26, 2021)—Michael Wagener, the ears behind some of the biggest albums in metal history, announced his retirement Sunday, April 25—his 70th birthday. More than 90 million albums sold feature his name in the credits, as he worked with the biggest names in hard rock and heavy metal, including Metallica, Poison, Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Skid Row, X, Mötley Crüe, Great White, Plasmatics, White Lion, Alice Cooper, Extreme, Dokken, Stryper, W.A.S.P., Overkill, .45 Grave, Accept, Testament, Helloween, Keel and more, as well as artists in other genres such as Janet Jackson and Muriel Anderson.
I have now been active in the music business for over 50 years and I think it’s time to retire and get out and catch up on some vacations. I have sold the studio and Double Trouble Productions does no longer exist as an official company.
I had an amazing time and met a ton of wonderful people and I am thankful for having been able to work with such great musicians and create such wonderful music.
Now it’s time to see some more of the world.
This site will eventually disappear. No more mixes, productions and workshops. The studio has been sold and except for some guitars, amps and minimal studio gear there is not much left here.
I want to thank you all for allowing me to live a great life and to do what I love. I am looking at a future of lots of traveling; it has been a great trip so far.
As a teenager in Germany, Wagener was the first guitarist for the band that would eventually become Accept, but had to quit when he was drafted into the army at 18. In 1972, he began working for a Hamburg, Germany company called Stramp that produced equipment for studios and stage use; during that time, he earned a degree in electronics engineering. By the late 1970s, he had built a 16-track studio in Hamburg, Tennessee Tonstudio, where he learned studio production and maintenance. While there, he met American guitarist Don Dokken, who was touring Germany at the time, and the two became fast friends. When the self-named group Dokken was signed two years later, Wagener produced its first album, Breaking The Chains, which went gold in the U.S.
With that success, Wagener became busy over the next few years primarily as an engineer and mix engineer, as the then-burgeoning metal movement exploded. He teamed with lifelong friend and leader of Accept, Udo Dirkschneider, to form a production company, Double Trouble Productions, and during that time, also mixed debut albums for Mötley Crüe and Great White. With the U.S. hungry for metal, Wagener moved to Los Angeles in 1984, soon producing X’s Ain’t Love Grand and Stryper’s Soliders Under Command.
Over the ensuing years, he mixed noted albums like Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Megadeth’s So Far, So Good…So What, Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears and Poison’s debut, Look What The Cat Dragged In. Meanwhile, he took on the producer mantel for Skid Row’s triple-platinum self-titled debut, Alice Cooper’s Raise Your Fist and Yell, Extreme’s commercial breakthrough Pornograffitti, Warrant’s Dog Eat Dog and others, while also netting a top-10 single with Janet Jackson’s pop-metal track, “Black Cat.”
While continuing to work with hard rock and metal acts throughout his career, Wagener moved to Nashville in 1996 and built his own digital recording facility, WireWorld Studio, which evolved to become a fully digital 5.1 surround production facility.
Los Angeles, CA (March 8, 2021)—On International Women’s Day, and only days ahead of the Grammy Awards, there is little to celebrate in the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s annual report, “Inclusion in the Recording Studio?”
The fourth annual report was conducted by Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, with funding from Spotify. “It is International Women’s Day everywhere, except for women in music, where women’s voices remain muted,” said Smith. “While women of color comprised almost half of all women artists in the nine years examined, there is more work needed to reach inclusion in this business.”
The study breaks down the gender and race/ethnicity for artists, songwriters and producers represented on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts from 2012 to 2020. It also tracks the percentage of women nominated for a Grammy Award in the key categories of Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Producer of the Year and Best New Artist for the past nine years.
According to the report, women comprised 21.6% of all artists on the Billboard charts over the nine years. They also represented only one-fifth — 20.2% — of artists on the chart in 2020. That’s up from an all-time low of 16.8% in 2017, but still only the third highest, and a drop from 2019’s figure of 22.5. Few women appeared on the chart in duos (7.1%) or bands (7.3%) and were most likely to perform as solo artists (30%), according to the study.
The prevalence of artists from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the Hot 100 is more hopeful. Across the nine-year sample, artists of color accounted for 46.7% of the total. But in 2020, that figure was 59%, marking a steady increase since 2013, when underrepresented groups occupied fewer than one-third (31.2%) of the Hot 100 end-of-year chart.
As for women songwriters and producers, the picture is bleak. Only 12.9% of songwriters were women in 2020’s chart, consistent with the 12.6% of women songwriters across 900 songs for the past nine years. That’s a ratio of seven men to every one woman songwriter.
The study found that the percentage of women of color working as songwriters declined from the peak reached the previous year, but still represents an increase from 2012. For white women songwriters, 2020 was no different from 2019 and 2012. Across the nine-year sample, 57.3% of songs did not feature any women songwriters. That average rose in 2020, when 65% of songs did not feature any women songwriters.
However, it’s in the studio that women fare worst, holding only 2% of all producing positions across the Hot 100 songs for 2020. The study examined producing credits for a subset of 600 songs and found that women represented 2.6% of producers in these songs overall, and earned a total of 33 producing credits, nine of which went to women of color. This translated to only seven individual women of color working as producers and a ratio of men to underrepresented women in this role of 180 to 1.
“Women producers — and particularly women of color — are virtually erased from the music industry,” Smith said. “Only 5% of the songs in our sample spanning nine years of popular music had a woman producer. Harnessing the opportunity to showcase women’s talent and their creative contributions is essential if the record business wants to reach equality.”
This year’s Grammy Award nominations offer a high point for women in all the noted categories except one, Producer of the Year. For the eighth of nine years studied no women have been nominated in the category. Of the women nominees over the last nine years, 38.5% were women of color.
John “Feldy” Feldmann likes to stay busy. Over a three-decade career, he’s done just that, fronting bands, holding down A&R positions, co-founding a record label, and producing and writing for a list of artists as long as your arm.
Then came the pandemic. Feldmann, Grammy-nominated for his work with Blink-182 and Fever 333, got down to business in the studio at his home in Calabasas, CA, re-recreating back catalog hits by Goldfinger, his seminal California ska-punk band. The other far-flung band members contributed their tracks, with video, and Goldfinger’s Quarantine Video series was born.
Inspired, Feldmann sat down to write and produce a new Goldfinger album, the band’s ninth studio full-length since forming in 1994. Never Look Back was released Dec. 4 on his label, Big Noise.
Over Zoom, Feldmann gave PSN a virtual tour of his studio, where he’s currently working with Avril Lavigne, and talked about his pandemic productions.
On the Quarantine Videos:
The idea came out of me knowing my own brain and knowing that an idle mind is the devil’s playground. I have got to be busy, and at the time, we didn’t know what COVID-19 was, or if it was a straight killer. I came up with this idea to record my parts and see if the guys could do their own parts in their respective houses.
The first song was “Here in Your Bedroom,” which was apropos. I just ripped it off YouTube and put it in a Pro Tools session. We set up a click template and I sang and played along to the original. All these videos are one take of me playing guitar and singing. Everyone else would send me their takes and I’d put them in the session. I wanted it to sound like a live show, so our live mix engineer, Jon Graber, mixed all of them.
On Producing Never Look Back:
I wrote most of it in quarantine by myself. The whole album was recorded in quarantine. It’s a fun, nostalgic Goldfinger album. We’ve got ska, punk, reggae—all the flavors.
Mike Herrera, our bass player, lives in Bremerton, WA, and did all his parts at his studio. Moon [Valjean], the guitar player, lives in St. Louis; he did all his stuff on a little Pro Tools “light” system. Jon Graber has a studio and recorded [guitarist] Charlie Paulson there. Everything else was done here.
A lot of people want to sing their lead vocals to the vibe and hear the finished music to get the energy of the song, but I couldn’t do it that way. I would record my final vocals, all the doubles and all the harmonies, and all my guitars. I’m definitely a fan of Rupert Neve; I have the Brent Averil 1073s, the Vintech 1073s, I use the Slate Dragon as my 1176 modeler—I love that thing.
I sent everyone my finished parts with a click track. A lot of times I would program the drums; EZ Drummer has all my samples in their Pop Punk EZX. Travis Barker [of Blink-182] played a lot of the drums on the record; he lives in Calabasas. Nick Gross [Big Noise co-founder] also played some of the drums. I’ve got a great drum room and a great drum kit, so we cut all of the drums at my studio. They were one of the last things I did on this album.
I had Mike [Herrera] sing a bunch of stuff. He’d write a verse, send me the lyrics, and I’d say yes or no: “Maybe you can give it another shot.”
Monique Powell from Save Ferris sang on one song. I said, “Could you give me more ad libs? I don’t feel your presence.” She did four different takes. She was in an apartment in London on a laptop, screaming into an SM58, so I used [Antares] Mic Mod [software] and changed it to a Manley Reference Gold.
Every album I’ve ever made, I’m in the room with the musicians and I’m saying, “Let’s try that again.” But this time, I got the parts and had to make use of whatever they sent me. Thank God I’ve got such great musicians!
United Kingdom (January 6, 2021) — UK Music, a trade organization representing a broad swath of the country’s music industry—studios, live music sector, artists, publishers, labels, managers and others—has released a new report, Let The Music Play: Save Our Summer, that highlights the damage done to the live music industry by the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers recommendations on how to mitigate and recover from those setbacks.
“We were a growing and thriving industry before the pandemic hit, and with the right support, we can be that successful and self-reliant industry again,” says UK Music chief executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin in the report.
Live music is key to the UK economy, according to UK Music, stating that the live sector made up £1.3 billion of the UK’s £5.8 billion music industry in 2019. However, the pandemic brought that momentum to a halt, with a 90.2% drop in revenue for festivals last year, and up to 50% of the festival workforce laid off by year’s end. Facing similar challenges, “Grassroots Music Venues” saw a 75.2% drop in revenue with an adjoining 60.4% workforce layoff. All those closures worked their way back upstream to the artists themselves, who, the report says, lost up to 80% of their income due to the shuttering of the live sector.
Rather than wring hands, however, the report looks at how the industry can move towards recovery before the pandemic subsides due to vaccinations. “The best way to support and protect the live music sector is to get it back on its feet and enable it to start generating income again,” says the report, going on to suggest methods for reducing risk of transmission at live music events, and exploring how to “operate in the current landscape in a way that is financially viable.” Methods suggested include adoption of rapid testing and industry-led proof-of-concept events; supporting use of improved ventilation and pathogen reduction systems in venues; and more.
While the report places much of the expectation of enacting these proposals on the industry itself, it also looks to the UK government for support and guidance, and requests a set date for full-capacity restart, a government-backed reinsurance scheme, targeted financial support, extension to the VAT rate reduction on tickets, rollover of the paid 2020 local authority license fees, and extension to business rates relief.
The full Let The Music Play: Save Our Summer report can be downloaded for free.
The Mac Pro Rack computer dominates the 10 RU rack that houses it in Rich Tozzoli’s workspace.
If there’s one thing that we studio people like, it’s consistency in our gear. As the primary brains to most setups, the computer is central to that theme, so when my trusty Mac Pro “cheese grater”—which ran perfectly for 10 years—went down for the count a few months ago, I didn’t take it lightly. It was time to make some big decisions. I weighed the basic questions we should always ask ourselves when upgrading: Do I stay with my current platform (a Mac, in my case)? What’s my budget? What’s the latest hardware on the market to fit my I/O needs? Am I buying for the short term or long?
Over the last few years, I thought about upgrading my old Mac Pro, my primary DAW platform, when I ran into roadblocks with OS upgrades, software and Pro Tools compatibility, but the little “trash can” shape that Apple used for Mac Pros manufactured between 2013 and 2019 just didn’t work for me. I didn’t want to put my Avid HDX card and my UAD Octo card into a chassis. The trash can form factor is now history, however. After working on my laptop for a few months to get me through my “crisis,” I made the move and went big with a new Mac Pro Rack.
Inside the Apple Mac Pro Rack Apple
Luckily for me, my friend, producer/drummer extraordinaire Omar Hakim, had recently been through the whole process, so I had a guide. “Right before I got my new Mac, my ‘trash can’ suffered a catastrophic thermal meltdown,” he told me. “I ended up using a laptop for a few months while I was waiting for the release of the new Mac Pro Rack. I settled on a 12-core Mac Pro Rack model with 96 GB of RAM, a 2 TB factory SSD card and a base video card. I added two 2 TB internal Samsung SSD EVO 970 NVMe M.2 cards with two Vantec PCIe adapters—components I purchased, assembled and installed myself. I then loaded up my two Avid HDX cards and Universal Audio Satellite PCI card. My studio has never run smoother!” He noted that he purchased the base amount of RAM from Apple and bought the rest from OWC.
With his feedback in mind, I made the decision to purchase a Mac Pro Rack over an iMac Pro or Mac Mini. I visited Apple.com and went through the process of ordering the components I wanted: a 3.2 GHz 16-core Intel Xeon W processor-based machine with the base 32 GB of 2933 MHz DDR4 RAM to get started.
I also worked with Rob Zenn at Alto Music on this purchase; Zenn convinced me to get the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X 16 GB graphics card, as it includes four additional powered Thunderbolt 3 ports. We made sure the hardware came with macOS Catalina version 10.15.5 installed so as not to get into conflicts with the upcoming Big Sur OS release.
The good news: I had a machine that would rock. The bad news? It came to a whopping $9,900. However, since this is the brains of my setup, which I use every day to compose, mix or create music, I judged it to be a good allocation of funds. Besides, it’s a tax write-off!
The new Mac Pro Rack was quickly teamed up with the brand-new Avid Carbon interface.
When the machine arrived, crated in foam, I couldn’t believe what a monster it was. It’s built like a tank. I was taken aback by its design and downright sturdiness. I’ve had a lot of Macs in my day, but nothing like this. It came with eight PCI Express expansion slots, two of which were filled by my Avid HDX card and the Universal Audio UAD-2 OCTO card.
Engineer Mike Dwyer and I slipped on the heavy-duty rack rails (sent separately from Apple) and slid it into the 10-space rack I purchased for it. We hooked up an HDMI video cable from my Samsung to the Mac, set up the cool black wireless keyboard and mouse, and fired it up. Within a few minutes, it was game on.
Next, we attached a single AVB Ethernet cable from my new Avid Carbon interface (which I reviewed last month) to the Mac Pro, and plugged in a Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 Mk2 keyboard and PreSonus FaderPort 8 into two of the included USB ports. I had made an Apple Time Machine backup of my laptop the night before and saved the data on a portable SSD drive, which I hooked up to the new computer.
Using Apple Time Machine’s Migration Assistant, I transferred the files from my backup to the new Mac Pro Rack, and while it took almost two hours, everything transferred over to the new Mac: Pro Tools 2020.11, Reason, all of my Vienna Instruments, Omnisphere, Universal Audio Console and all of my plug-ins. I opened Pro Tools and everything simply worked. With just a few software updates, it was the easiest migration I’ve ever experienced.
This week, I’m ordering 32 GB more RAM and a few SSD internal drives to load the chassis up even more. It’s been flawless in its performance so far, and not even my heavy virtual instrument sessions can choke it. For the first time, I’ve found a machine that works faster than I do, which has already helped my creativity. For me, it’s already worth the money.
Los Angeles, CA (March 8, 2021)—On International Women’s Day, and only days ahead of the Grammy Awards, there is little to celebrate in the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s annual report, “
United Kingdom (January 6, 2021) — UK Music, a trade organization representing a broad swath of the country’s music industry—studios, live music sector, artists, publishers, labels, managers and others—has released a new report, Let The Music Play: Save Our Summer, that highlights the damage done to the live music industry by the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers recommendations on how to mitigate and recover from those setbacks.
