Archives for January 2003

Canton Karat L 800 DC Floorstanding Loudspeaker

January 12, 2003 by kevin Leave a Comment

Canton's new L 800 DC features the side-firing woofer and elegant slim face that distinguishes the Karat family

Canton has introduced the Karat L 800 DC, a full-range, three-way floorstanding loudspeaker that incorporates many of the engineering principles developed for the company’s flagship Reference 2 DC speaker.

The L 800 DC features Canton’s Displacement Control (DC) technology, which uses a proprietary high-pass filter to prevent infrasonic frequency signals (below 20 Hz) from interfering with the bass driver. In conventional speakers, these signals can generate high levels of unwanted harmonic distortion in the audible lower bass range, causing a muffled or “blatty” tonal quality. DC technology allows the speaker’s 12-inch cellulose-graphite woofer to provide clear, linear bass reproduction to 20 Hz, the bottom of the audible sound spectrum.

The new Karat will be available in January, 2003 in Ash black, Cherry, or Beech veneer finishes, as well as the Karat family’s unique silver lacquer finish. Suggested retail price is $4,200 (US) per pair.

More About the Karat L 800 DC

Canton Elektronik Web Site

More CES 2003 News

Filed Under: Tech

Cycling ’74 Releases radiaL – New Loop-Based Performance Software

January 8, 2003 by kevin Leave a Comment

Cycling ’74 demonstrated radiaL 1.0 at the Winter NAMM show. radiaL is an extensible loop-based composition and performance tool designed for Macintosh users looking to explode the boundaries between live performance, sound design, and composition.

radiaL is not simply another loop sequencer for real-time tinkering with tempo and pitch on multiple loops. radiaL is a loop-based performance software with a beautiful and unique interface thoughtfully optimized for playing live.

The program is based on loop channels represented by circular displays, each with its own performable multi-filter and pitch shifting/time scaling. Almost every aspect of the system can configured for live performance, studio recording, or sound exploration, controlled from a variety of sources (control surfaces, MIDI, keyboard or mouse).

radiaL features complete multi-channel audio I/O support, audio and effects routing, and support for VST plug-ins. It supports all major audio file formats and I/O standards. As a bonus, you get a dozen VST plug-in effects from Cycling 74’s Pluggo collection, and a crucial tempo-synchronized filter/delay.

Key Features:

Sample-accurate loops and syncing
Support for AIFF, WAV, and MP3 files
Dynamic interchange of loops and DSP effects
Built-in library of external MIDI controller templates and the ability to add your own
Insanely flexible audio routing and support for ASIO, ReWire, DirectConnect, and VST on OS 9 and CoreAudio on OS X
Record direct to disk record on the fly
A free library of loops

Price and Availability

radiaL has a suggested retail price of $249 and will be available for purchase or download from www.cycling74.com on January 31. An OS X version of radial will be released in Q2, and will be available as a free upgrade to all registered radiaL users.

Cycling ’74 Web Site

More Winter NAMM Coverage

Filed Under: Production

Audio Engineers, Producers and Recordings, Recognized in 45th GRAMMY Awards Nominations

January 8, 2003 by kevin Leave a Comment

The Recording Academy has announced the list of nominated recordings and artists that will form the voting pool for the 45th GRAMMY Awards, to be presented on Feb. 23 2003 at Madison Square Gardens in New York.

The complete list of nominations in more than 100 categories is available online in text format and in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Buy AudioWorld’s Recommended
Grammy-Nominated Recordings at Amazon
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From an audio-quality perspective, most of the categories and nominations are more or less meaningless. For one thing, the majority of the categories deal with “best performance” (emphasis on the artists) rather than “best recording.” For another, the nominations and voting in the major genre categories boil down to a music industry popularity (and political muscle) contest.

But in some categories, production and engineering values are a major consideration, and in a few cases the nominations and awards are even decided by specialized groups of technically-knowledgeable voters.

Here is our selective list of nominations in categories that are of particular interest from the audio production point of view.

Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical

Ask a Woman Who Knows (Natalie Cole)
Elliot Scheiner, Al Schmitt, engineers
[Verve Records]

C’mon, C’mon (Sheryl Crow)
Trina Shoemaker, Eric Tew, engineers
[A&M Records]

Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)
Arif Mardin, Jay Newland, Husky Huskolds, engineers
[Blue Note Records]

Home (Dixie Chicks)
Gary Paczosa, engineer
[Open Wide/Monument/Columbia Records]

Morning View (Incubus)
Mike Einzinger, Dave Holdredge, Scott Litt and Rick Will, engineers
[Epic/Immortal Records]

Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical

He Loves Me (Jill Scott)
Your Friends From San Francisco, remixers
[Hidden Beach Recordings]

Hella Good (No Doubt)
Roger Sanchez, remixer
[Interscope Records]

Lost Love (Rinocerose)
Felix Da Housecat, remixer
[V2 Records]

What About Us (Brandy)
Steve Silk Hurley, remixer
[Silk Entertainment]

Work It Out (Beyonce Knowles)
Maurice Joshua, remixer
[Columbia Records]

Best Dance Recording

Gotta Get Thru This (Daniel Bedingfield)
Daniel Bedingfield, Al Stone, producers; John Davis, mixer
[Island/Def Jam]

Days Go By (Dirty Vegas)
Ben Harris, Paul Harris, Steve Smith, producers
[Capitol Records]

Superstylin’ (Groove Armada)
Groove Armada, producers; Dave Pemberton, mixer
[Jive Electro Records]

Love At First Sight (Kylie Minogue)
Julian Gallagher, Richard “Biff” Stannard, producers; Ash Howes, mixer
[Capitol Records]

Hella Good (No Doubt)
Nellee Hooper, No Doubt, producers; Mark “Spike” Stent, mixer
[Interscope Records]

Best Engineered Album, Classical

Chadwick: Orchestral Works (Kenneth Schermerhorn)
John Newton, engineer
[Naxos of America]

Orff: Carmina Burana (Donald Runnicles, Norman Mackenzie)
Jack Renner, engineer
[Telarc Digital]

Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Vocalise etc. (Eiji Oue)
Keith O. Johnson, engineer
[Reference Recordings]

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 (Mstislav Rostropovich)
Tony Faulkner, engineer
[LSO Live]

Vaughn Williams: Symphony No. 1 – A Sea Symphony (Robert Spano, Norman Mackenzie)
Michael Bishop, engineer
[Telarc Digital]

Producer of the Year, Non-Classical

Dr. Dre, for:
– Business (Eminem) (track)
– Holla (Busta Rhymes) (track)
– Jimmy (Truth Hurts) (track)
– Lookin’ At You (Warren G, featuring Toi) (track)
– My Dad’s Gone Crazy (Eminem) (track)
– The Wash (Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg) (track)

Nellee Hooper, for:
– Black Mona Lisa (Lamya) (track)
– Detective (No Doubt) (track)
– Empires (Lamya) (track)
– Hella Good (No Doubt) (track)
– Perfect Girl (Lamya) (track)
– Rock Steady (No Doubt) (track)
– Running (No Doubt) (track)

Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, for:
– Here I Am (Bryan Adams) (track)
– I’m Gonna Be Ready (Yolanda Adams) (track)
– Never Give Up (Yolanda Adams) (track)
– Oh Well (Boyz II Men) (track)
– Through The Rain (Mariah Carey) (single)
– Up & Down (In & Out) (Deborah Cox) (single)

Arif Mardin, for:
– Come Away With Me (Norah Jones) (album)

Rick Rubin, for:
– American IV: The Man Comes Around (Johnny Cash) (album)
– By The Way (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (track)
– Give My Love To Rose (Johnny Cash) (track)
– Hurt (Johnny Cash) (track)
– Personal Jesus (Johnny Cash) (track)
– Tear (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (track)
– The Zephyr Song (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (track)

Producer of the Year, Classical

Andrew Cornall, for:
– Camilo: Concerto for Piano and Orch., Caribe, etc. (Michel Camilo)
– Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”, Totenfeier (Riccardo Chailly)
– Moussorgsky: Pictures At An Exibition, Night On Bare Mountain, etc. (Valery Gergiev)
– Rossini Arias: Semiramide, Otello, Zelmira, etc. (Juan Diego Flórez)

Manfred Eicher, for:
– Berio: Voci (Folk Songs II); Sicilian Folk Music; Naturale, etc. (Kim Kashkashian)
– Der Bote (C. P. E. Bach, Cage, Liszt, Etc.) (Alexei Lubimov)
– Karaindrou: Trojan Women (Antonis Kontogeorgiou)
– Pärt: Orient and Occident (Tõnu Kaljuste)
– Silvestrov: Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, etc.) (Valentin Silvestrov, A. Lechner, S. Avenhaus, Rosamunde Quartet, M. Deubner, S. Fordham)

James Mallinson, for:
– Elgar: Symphony No. 1 (Sir Colin Davis)
– Elgar: Symphony No. 3 (Sir Colin Davis)
– Mozart’s Circle – The Beneficent Dervish; The Impresario (Martin Pearlman, C. Sieden, S. Baker, Various)
– Music Of Max Reger – Reger & Romanticism (Leon Botstein)
– Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 (Mstislav Rostropovich)

Robert Woods, for:
– A Celtic Spectacular: Celtic Dream, Cry of the Celts, etc. (Erich Kunzel, The Chieftains, Sir James Galway, John McDermott)
– LAGQ Latin: Fragile, Hasta Alicia Baila, La Trampa, etc. (Los Angeles Guitar Quartet)
– Scary Music: Ghostbusters, Monster Mash, Thriller, etc. (Erich Kunzel)
– Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 (Paavo Järvi)
– The Sound Of Glory – Great Hymns of Faith and Inspiration (Craig Jessop)

Robina G. Young, for:
– Bach: 7 Harpsichord Concertos (Richard Egarr)
– Brahms: The Sonatas for Violin & Piano (Pierre Amoyal, Frederic Chiu)
– Handel: Complete Violin Sonatas (Andrew Manze, Richard Egarr)
– La Belle Marie – Songs to the Virgin from 13th-century France (Anonymous 4)
– Mendelssohn: String Quartets, Vol. 2 (Eroica Quartet)

Record of the Year

A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton) (track)
Ron Fair, producer; Tal Herzberg, Jack Joseph Puig and Michael C. Ross, engineer/mixers
[A&M Records]

Without Me (Eminem) (track)
Jeff Bass and Eminem, producers; Steve King, engineer/mixer
[Aftermath/Interscope Records]

Don’t Know Why (Norah Jones) (track)
Norah Jones, Arif Mardin and Jay Newland, producers; Mardin and Newland, engineer/mixers
[Blue Note Records]

Dilemma (Nelly, featuring Kelly Rowland) (track)
Bam and Ryan Bowser, producers; Brian Garten, engineer/mixer
[Universal Records]

How You Remind Me (Nickelback) (track)
Nickelback and Rick Parashar, producers; Joey Moi and Randy Staub, engineer/mixers
[Roadrunner Records]

Album of the Year

Home (Dixie Chicks)
Dixie Chicks and Lloyd Maines, producers; Gary Paczosa, engineer/mixer; Robert Hadley and Doug Sax, mastering
[Open Wide/Monument/Columbia Records]

The Eminem Show (Eminem)
Jeff Bass, Dr. Dre, Eminem and Denaun Porter, producers; Mauricio Iragorri and Steve King, engineer/mixers; Brian Gardner, mastering
[Aftermath/Interscope Records]

Come Away with Me (Norah Jones)
Norah Jones, Arif Mardin, Craig Street and Jay Newland, producers; Mardin, Newland and Husky Huskolds, engineer/mixers; Ted Jensen, mastering
[Blue Note Records]

Nellyville (Nelly)
Jason Epperson, Just Blaze, The Neptunes, The Trackboyz, Wally Yaghnam, producers; Steve Eigner, Brian Garten, Russ Giraud, Gimel Keaton, Greg Morgenstein, Matt Still and Rich Travali, engineer/mixers; Herb Powers, mastering
[Universal Records]

The Rising (Bruce Springsteen)
Brendan O’Brien, producer, Nick Didia and O’Brien, engineer/mixers; Bob Ludwig, mastering
[Columbia Records Group]

Best Classical Album

Beethoven: String Quartets (Takacs Quartet)
Andrew Keener, producer
[Decca Records]

Bel Canto: Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti et al. (Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Patrick Summers, conductor, Renée Fleming, soprano)
Erik Smith, producer
[Decca Records]

Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor)
Andreas Neubronner, producer
[SFS Media]

Pärt: Orient and Occident (Swedish Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste, conductor)
Manfred Eicher, producer
[ECM New Series]

Vaughn Williams: Symphony No. 1 – A Sea Symphony (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano, conductor)
Thomas C. Moore, producer
[Telarc Digital]

Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture

A Beautiful Mind (James Horner)
[Decca Records]

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (John Williams)
[Warner Sunset Records]

The Lord Of The Rings – The Fellowship Of The Ring (Howard Shore)
[Reprise Records]

Monsters, Inc. (Randy Newman)
[Walt Disney Records]

Spider-Man (Danny Elfman)
[Sony Music Soundtrax/Columbia Records]

Best Historical Album

Artie Shaw: Self Portrait
Orrin Keepnews, compilation producer; Dennis Ferrante, mastering engineer
[Bluebird]

The Complete OKeh and Brunswick Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer And Jack Teagarden Sessions (1924-36)
Scott Wenzel, compilation producer; Doug Pomeroy, mastering engineer
[Mosaic Records]

Dylan Thomas: The Caedmon Collection
Rick Harris, David Nolan, compilation producers; Leslie Mona-Mathus, mastering engineer [Caedmon Records]

The Genius of the Electric Guitar (Charlie Christian)
Michael Brooks, Michael Cuscuna, compilation producers; Seth Foster, Ken Robertson, Mark Wilder, mastering engineers
[Columbia/Legacy Recordings]

Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: The Worlds Of Charley Patton
Dean Blackwood, compilation producer; David Glasser, Christopher King, mastering engineers
[Revenant Records]

Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package

Can You Dig It? The ’70s Soul Experience
Sevie Bates, art director (Various Artists)
[WSM/Rhino Entertainment]

Capitol Records Sixtieth Anniversary 1942-2002
Mary Fagot, Joshua Liberson, George Mimnaugh & Ethan Trask, art directors (Various Artists)
[Capitol Records]

Like Omigod! – The ’80s Pop Culture Box (Totally)
Hugh Brown & Julie Vlasak, art directors (Various Artists)
[Rhino Records]

Screamin’ And Hollerin’ The Blues: The Worlds Of Charley Patton
Susan Archie, art director (Charley Patton)
[Revenant Records]

Ultra-Lounge – Vegas Baby!
Michelle Azzopardi & Andy Engel, art directors (Various Artists)
[Capitol Records]

Best Album Notes

Artie Shaw: Self Portrait
Artie Shaw, album notes writer
[Bluebird]

The Golden Road (1965-1973) (Grateful Dead)
Dennis McNally, album notes writer
[Warner Bros. WSM / Rhino Entertainment]

Screamin’ And Hollerin’ The Blues: The Worlds Of Charley Patton
David Evans, album notes writer
[Revenant Records]

Sinatra In Hollywood (1940-1964) (Frank Sinatra)
Will Friedwald, album notes writer
[Reprise Records/Turner Classic Music]

A State Of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981 (Glenn Gould)
Tim Page, album notes writer
[Sony Classical/Legacy Recordings]

Filed Under: Events

Cycling ’74 Releases Max, MSP & Jitter for Mac OS X, Demos Windows Version

January 7, 2003 by kevin Leave a Comment

At the Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim earlier this month, Cycling ’74 announced the release of OS X versions of its popular interactive graphical programming environment Max; the MSP collection of audio signal processing objects for Max; and the Jitter extensions for video, 3d graphics, and matrix-based data processing.

Also at NAMM, Cycling ’74 demonstrated Windows versions of Max, MSP and Jitter for the first time.

The Max program family has been the premiere environment for the development of interactive media and live performance applications for over a decade. Until now, though, it has only available on the Macintosh platform.

The new versions of MAX/MSP take advantage of Mac OS X’s Core Audio and Core MIDI, which make the use of multiple I/O audio interfaces straightforward and renders OMS and ASIO unnecessary.

“We are excited about having MAX/MSP and Jitter leverage the advanced technologies within Apple’s super-modern operating system, Mac OS X,” commented Cycling ’74 CEO, David Zicarelli.

“Mac OS X features Core Audio, Audio Units, Quartz, Java, QuickTime 6, symmetric multiprocessing, and hardware support that provides opportunities for further evolution of MAX/MSP and Jitter that was not possible in OS 9.”

Building applications with Max is fun and interactive. It lets you work at a level of detail that is unmatched by other software synthesis or video/3D graphics manipulation applications. You build programs (called “patches”) by connecting graphical objects together. Some objects perform calculations and others make up the user interface of your program. The moment you connect two objects, the program is working. If it doesn’t work the way you want, just try something else.

MSP adds a large set of objects that you connect together to make audio patches where signals flow from one object to the next, and the Jitter collection of objects lets you create video or 3D graphics patches or work with any matrix-based data.

The main goals of Max are to let you control anything with anything and to explore cross-media applications by prototyping and constructing custom interactive media applications and interfaces. It lets you schedule events with millisecond accuracy, create complex mappings for incoming data, and run a large number of operations in parallel.

The Windows versions of the software will allow for cross-platform development of applications. Max/MSP/Jitter patches developed on one platform will open seamlessly on the other, and use consistent abstractions for all types of media protocols and interfaces, including MIDI, digital audio soundfiles and interfaces, digital video, and 3D graphics.

The Windows version supports PCs running Windows XP with audio devices supported by WAV, DirectSound, or ASIO. Max/MSP hosts ReWire devices and VST plug-ins and supports all major audio file formats. Features are essentially identical between the Windows XP version and Mac OS X versions.

Users will be able to develop their own Max, MSP, or Jitter external objects written in C, and distribute their work to others using the free MaxMSP runtime application. Support for developing VST plug-ins on Windows will be available shortly after the initial Windows release.

Pricing and Availability

New versions of Max, MSP, and Jitter for Mac OS X will be available by the end of January. Max has a suggested retail price of $295 (US), Max/MSP has a suggested retail price of $495 (US), and Max/MSP/Jitter has a suggested retail prices of $850 (US). OS X versions of all three software packages are available to users of Max/MSP 4.0 and Jitter 1.0 and higher as free updates.

The Windows versions of Max, MSP and Jitter will be available in the second quarter of 2003, pricing identical to the Mac versions. Low-cost upgrades (cross-grades) will be available for Mac users.

Cycling ’74 Web Site

More Cycling ’74 at NAMM

More Winter NAMM Coverage

Filed Under: Pro Audio

Unique Software for Audio Searching and Editing Available at FindSounds.com

January 7, 2003 by kevin Leave a Comment

AUDIO INDUSTRY NEWS Grass Valley, CA, January 7, 2003
Unique Software for Audio Searching and Editing Available at FindSounds.com

Comparisonics Corporation has announced a packaged version of its ground-breaking sound search and retrieval software.

FindSounds Palette is an audio player, recorder, editor, database, search engine, and Web browser, all in a single software package. It is easy to use and well suited for anyone needing to search for, organize, and edit sound effects and musical instrument samples. Intended users include electronic musicians, sound designers, multimedia and Web developers, filmmakers, videographers, teachers, and students.

FindSounds Palette provides access to more than 1,000,000 sound effects and musical instrument samples on the Web and gives users the ability to organize and search audio files stored on their hard drive. Sounds can be searched using any combination of their attributes including file name, description, category, genre, source, copyright, format, file size, number of channels, resolution, sample rate, duration, key, and tempo. In addition, for any example sound, a Comparisonics “sounds-like” search can automatically find similar sounds on the Web or on the user’s hard drive.

FindSounds Palette utilizes the Comparisonics colored waveform display to represent the sounds retrieved by a search. This display helps users to “see” the sounds they are editing. Similar sounds are represented by similar colors, and changes in sound are indicated by changes in color.

The example below is a representation of the sounds made by a cat (orange), a fly (lavender), and a rooster (red). More examples can be seen at http://www.comparisonics.com/gallery.html.

Hollywood sound designers know well that useful and interesting sounds can be obtained by changing the playback speed of an audio recording. FindSounds Palette makes it easy to change speed, and is the first sound-retrieval system able to search the sounds of multiple speeds. By searching each audio file at 25 different speeds, a collection of 10,000 audio files becomes a searchable database of 250,000 sounds!

FindSounds Palette is available for Microsoft Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98, 95, and NT. A limited version FindSounds Palette 1000 that can handle up to 1,000 locally-indexed sounds costs $50 (US). The full FindSounds Palette 10000 supporting up to 10,000 local audio files costs $150 (US). More information about the product, including a free 15-day trial and special introductory Web-download pricing, is available at the FindSounds.com Web site.

Comparisonics Corporation is the world leader in sound-retrieval technology. FindSounds.com is the company’s Web search engine for sound effects and musical instrument samples. This award-winning search engine is like Google and AltaVista, but with a focus on sounds. Each month it processes more than 1,000,000 sound searches for more than 100,000 unique visitors.

Comparisonics Web Site

FindSounds Search Engine