CEntrance at Newport ‘T.H.E. Show’
Audiophile Desktop System: stereo pair of "MasterClass 2504" desktop 2-way coaxial speakers, the "DACmini PX"
At the 2012 T.H.E. Show in Newport Beach, CEntrance, Inc. will be showing its new Audiophile Desktop System product bundle. The system packs a stereo pair of “MasterClass 2504” desktop 2-way coaxial speakers and the “DACmini PX” desktop amplifier, headphone amp and DAC. The bundle also includes a travel case with custom foam cushioning as well as speaker and USB cables. The Audiophile Desktop System was designed from the ground up to bring Hi-Fi sound straight to the desktop for today’s Internet-connected consumers. The DAC, amp and speakers are closely matched and properly voiced to work in concert. The Audiophile Desktop System provides a complete digital audio listening solution for a street price of $2,000 USD and is available for ordering now.
“Today’s networked users, who spend their day at the desk, are forced to listen to inferior audio quality piped through standard computer speakers. That’s no fun. We pioneered the Audiophile Desktop concept to free your music from consumer-grade sound, offering mastering-level audio quality in a compact, desktop-friendly format,” states Michael Goodman, Managing Director of CEntrance. “We have tuned this system for performance and it offers better results than ad-hoc collections of components from several manufacturers. We’re confident that the new Audiophile Desktop System will turn some heads and ears.”
Read More »Billy Mohler Gets Dangerous
Artist development business takes a leap with Grammy nomination, record deals and Dangerous Music equipment
Musician and producer Billy Mohler uses the Dangerous D-Box
A musical life can take a few twists and turns before settling in. Early on as a musician Billy Mohler studied upright bass at both the Berklee College of Music, and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. But he’s found a niche developing artists and producing, especially solo artists and Indie bands. Mohler also plays guitar and keyboards – and drums. In fact, when he’s working with a solo artist he often plays all the instruments on the album. These days, he works in his own studio in the Los Angeles area and harnesses the power of the Dangerous Music D-Box for analog summing and monitoring. At the 2012 Grammy(r) Awards one of the recent albums Mohler has songwriting credit on was nominated for “Best Latin Pop Album,” Nuestra by Gustavo Galindo.
Mohler says, “I’ve been using the D-Box for about 3 months, and it’s incredible, I love it. I work mainly in-the-box, so it’s nice to have for bouncing out mixes or songwriting sessions. Everything sounds wider, a little more transparent, more punch. It kind of bridges the gap for me,” he explains. “You can drive it hard so you can give it a nice analog crunch. It adds that next level of glue that I wasn’t getting from my in-the-box mixes. Mixes have a clear separation between the instruments and being able to sum the bass on it’s own output, I notice a smooth consistent bass response that I wasn’t getting from my in-the-box mixes. There’s just more definition in each instrument, more character and punch.”
Read More »Back in the Day: Silicon Valley & Music
As told to Linda Jacobson (lindaj@well.com)
LJ: Paul, what were you doing in 1984 — the year before you became a founding staff member of Opcode Systems? How would you describe the “work lifestyle,” routine, and group dynamic behind-the-scenes in your world then? Was the SF Bay Area audio industry back then influenced more by the cultures of the computer industry and Silicon Valley, music industry, San Francisco scene, and/or film industry and Hollywood?
PdB: In 1982 I had purchased a Rhodes Chroma synth and in 1983 created one of the first computer-based electronic music “home” studios in the San Francisco Bay Area around that instrument. I had added the Apple II computer and the sequencing and editing software from Fender along with the SIMPLE System synchronizer for video and audio and the requisite mixers, mics, speakers, 2-channel and multitrack tape decks. I was composing music for film and television and through my friend Doug McKechnie’s connection at Lucas Film I even had a chance to write a demo cue for the final Ewok scene in the latest Star Wars: Return of the Jedi movie, apparently Lucas wanted to hear some other ideas than what John Williams had come up with. Three of us in the San Francisco Synthesizer Ensemble got to write a sketch for the cue. It was exciting to see part of the movie before it came out.
The Rhodes Chroma and Chroma Polaris
Dangerous Music Rocks The Grammys
Dangerous Music is extending congratulations to several of their users who have Grammy(r) nominated projects for 2011. All the clients have great praise for the Dangerous Music gear they used in their productions, from the Foo Fighters, with mastering engineers Emily Lazar and Joe LaPorta, the Kings of Leon with co-producer and engineer Jacquire King, Glenn Schick mastering for Canton Jones, and Nashville’s producer and engineer John Schirmer for Keb Mo, to the engineers and producers at New York’s Stadium Red studios who turned out a host of nominations for projects from artists J. Cole, Chris Brown, Marsha Ambrosius, and classical composer Steven Mackey.
Rock royalty Foo Fighters and platinum favorites Kings of Leon share Rock Grammy accolades with Best Rock Album nominations, while the album and songs from the Foo Fighters “Wasted Light” also have nominations for Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Long Form Music Video. The Foo Fighters album, (produced by Butch Vig who’s up for Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical), was mastered by Emily Lazar and Joe LaPorta at The Lodge Mastering in NY, using Dangerous Music equipment. While the Kings of Leon release “Come Around Sundown” was co-produced and mixed by Jacquire King using Dangerous Music gear extensively throughout the production process.
Read More »Adam Young of “Owl City”
Adam Young of “Owl City” Mixes on Focal Monitors
New chart-topping artist chooses Focal Twin6 Be monitors on breakout album ‘Ocean Eyes’
Adam Young of "Owl City" with Focal Twin 6
With a growing fan-base and a world tour that continues throughout 2010, Adam Young, the creative force behind the band “Owl City,” is taking off. His first independent release in 2008, ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming,’ received much praise and made Young into a phenomenon, with over 16 million profile views and over 80 million plays on MySpace, all stemming from posting a few songs from the year before.
That’s led to Owl City’s newest CD – ‘Ocean Eyes’ – released in 2009 by Universal Republic Records. The album has sold over 1 million copies in the U.S. alone, while the first single “Fireflies” hit #1 in 23 countries. During the making of the ‘Ocean Eyes’ album Young discovered Focal Twin6 Be monitors, then got himself a pair. “I absolutely love the Focals. I had mixed with other brands over the years, but it was always a bit deceiving. Other monitors seemed somewhat overly polished, bass heavy and even ‘clubby.’ The Focal Twin 6s are so transparent, but still easy to listen to and work with: they really help my mixes translate to anything I play them back on,” states Young.
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