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Tonelux Signs with TRANSAUDIO GROUP for US Distribution
Following a
childhood spent changing water into hydrogen and oxygen in a grade
school project, and building small explosives with which to go fishing,
Paul Wolff built a career and companies by designing a bevy of key
recording gear used by virtually every notable sound engineer out
there.
In 2004, Wolff formed his own company, Tonelux Designs Limited.
The concept of the Tonelux product line was geared towards the "new
studio model," where so much more of the production work is
being done in the workstation, and the requirement for a large frame
console is not as necessary as it had been in the past. TransAudio
Group was recently appointed as exclusive U.S. distributor and will
rep Paul Wolff's Tonelux Designs Limited discrete audio products
for recording and live production, and ShadowMix motorized fader
automation for DAWs.
l-r: Jules, the Lord of Gearslutz, shows Bob Clearmountain his
new audio toy; Eddie Kramer checks out the new TXC compressor with
Paul Wolff; Jeff Goodman and Ryan Hewitt pose next to the Tonelux
Console; Munkey from KORN discusses mixing, touring and everything
else with Wolff
Tonelux manufactures a broad range of mic preamp, EQ, signal processing
and master modules that may be combined in the brand new V8 portable
rack or the 19-inch VRACK and configured with the FRACK fader package
to create a custom console.
The Tonelux 3RU VRACK can hold up to sixteen modules in any combination,
allowing user to create a custom-configured production system for
their specific application. Products include mic preamp, EQ, filter,
compressor, mixing, aux and master bussing, monitoring and stereo
and 5.1 master modules.
The new portable V8 will house up to eight modules and contains
a power supply capable of also powering an additional VRACK system.
Both racks include buss links, allowing larger, multi-rack systems
to be created, and may be combined with the FRACK outfitted with
100mm faders to create a full function mixing console system.
Noted Brad Lunde, president of TransAudio Group, "Paul knows
how to design and build product that sounds better, we all know
that. Combine that with the unique Tonelux solution of changeable,
configurable, customizable modules to create exactly what you need
to complete the analog side of your DAW-based studio and you have
a clear winner."
TransAudio Group, founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, has quickly
become the premier US importer/distributor and/or US sales and marketing
representative for high-end audio. Success hinges on TransAudio
providing dealers and end users with a higher standard of product
expertise and support far beyond the norm.
For more
info on Tonelux
contact Brad
Lunde at TransAudio
Group (702) 307-2700

TransAudio Group, founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, has
quickly become the premier US importer/distributor and/or US sales
and marketing representative for high-end audio. Success hinges
on TransAudio providing dealers and end users with a higher standard
of product expertise and support far beyond the norm. TAG product
line includes Accusound,
A-Designs
(USA) AEA ribbon microphones (USA), ADT
Toolkit, AEA,
ATC
Loudspeakers (UK), Brauner
microphones(Germany), Drawmer
(UK), Geoffrey
Daking & Co. (USA), Enhanced Audio (Ireland), George
Massenburg Labs (GML) (USA), Heil
Sound (USA); Mercury Audio (USA) Mission Audio (UK) Phoenix
Audio (UK), PAULY
Superscreens(Germany), SABRA
SOM(Brazil), Soundelux
(USA), SoundField
Microphones (UK), Z-Systems (USA), Sonodore
Microphones (Holland) and Weiss
Engineering (Switzerland) and Z Systems (USA)
LasVegasProAudio.com,
LasVegasProAudio.com, a division of TransAudio Group, is the
launch pad for the brands of tomorrow. The goal of LasVegasProAudio.com
is to provide unique equipment, useful information and long-term
support to their clients.


Expresso Cat Walk And Talk...
Just
like T.I., rappers RZA and Common are world renowned and much respected
among the hip-hop community. They both also co-star alongside the
jailed rapper in the upcoming Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe epic
'American
Gangster' which opens on Nov. 2. Common -- legally known
as Rashid Lonnie Lynn -- plays T.I.'s father in the Ridley Scott-helmed
film. The Chicago-reared recent chart-topper also shared his disbelief
of the machine gun charges that the Atlantic Records rapper -- legally
known as Clifford Harris, Jr. --is facing. "I don't believe
what they accused him of what he did. I just don't," he said.
Common even sent some advice out to T.I. -- who pleaded not guilty
on the weapons charges and was ordered to be detained for another
week: "Continue to pray and know that God is with him. Know
that He knows what the truth is and the truth is going to allow
[you] to get out and be alright." Indicted by a federal grand
jury Oct. 17 on weapons charges, including possession of machine
guns, the 27-year-old Atlanta native reportedly faces up to 10 years
in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count. Roc-A-Fella
Records and JAY-Z (pres at Def Jam Records) will release the
new album AMERICAN GANGSTER. Separate from the official motion picture
soundtrack, this collection of all-new original material is a musical
journey and lyrical interpretation of snapshots from the upcoming
motion picture American Gangster
Nokia's
LA Live opened with a historic concert by the Eagles and Dixie
Chicks at the 7,100-seat state-of-the-art NOKIA
Theatre L.A. LIVE, downtown Los Angeles' new theatre on October
18th and 20th. The grand opening was presented by WACHOVIA. Located
in downtown Los Angeles within the new LA LIVE sports, residential
and entertainment district, it offers guests mid-sized intimacy,
with no seat further from the stage than 210 feet, exceptional comfort
and amenities never before included in similar theatres, NOKIA Theatre
L. A. LIVE will host over 120 music, family, dance and comedy acts,
award shows, televised productions, conventions and product launches
annually. Across the street from STAPLES Center, the world's busiest
arena, and adjacent to the Los Angeles Convention Center LA LIVE
hopes to ultimately become the primary the "content campus"
and event center for southern California. The 27-acre LA LIVE will
also include a 54-story, 1001-room convention "headquarters"
hotel (combining JW Marriott and The Ritz Carlton brands and 224
luxury condominiums - The Ritz Carlton Residences at LA LIVE), Club
Nokia, a 2,200 capacity live music venue, a 14-screen Regal Cineplex,
"broadcast" facilities for ESPN along with entertainment,
restaurant and office space. 777 Chick Hearn Court, Los Angeles,
CA 90015
Re-birth
Of The Lenny...In a historic collaboration among Fender®,
Guitar Center® and the Stevie Ray Vaughan estate, the famous
Stevie Ray Vaughan "Lenny" Stratocaster® guitar has
been commissioned by Guitar Center to be reproduced in a limited
edition by the Fender Custom Shop. As part of Fender's Tribute Series
of guitars, "Lenny" will be produced in a limited quantity,
with 185 guitars offered for sale in the United States, made available
exclusively through Guitar Center. Guitar Center stores throughout
the United States will introduce the guitar on Dec. 12, 2007, and
will offer them to customers for $17,000 (US). Stevie
Ray Vaughan was just a struggling young guitarist in Austin, Texas,
in 1980, when his wife, Lenora "Lenny" Vaughan, gave him
a used Stratocaster that had recently caught his eye in a local
pawnshop. As they say, the rest is history with the faith of this
1965 Fender Stratocaster guitar.
Madonna Confessions
Photo Book
Madonna's co-manager Guy Oseary followed the queen of the dance
floor during her Confessions Tour back in 2006 and took thousands
of live pictures while Madonna was performing hits from her Confessions
On A Dance Floor album on stage. The 256 page picture book includes
a selection of his best photos and depicts the show as imagined
by the queen herself. Published by Flying Dolphin Press, the book
will be released on June 10, 2008 and available for pre-order from
Amazon.
Madonna's
Live Deal.. Madonna
and concert promoter Live
Nation Inc. announced a deal Tuesday that will give the company
an all-encompassing stake in the music of the Material Girl, the
latest big-name artist to break ranks with a major record label.
Financial terms were not disclosed in the joint statement released
by Madonna and Live Nation.
The deal is worth about $120 million over 10 years, a person who
spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature
of the matter previously told The Associated Press.
"The paradigm in the music business has shifted and as an artist
and a business woman, I have to move with that shift," Madonna
said. "For the first time in my career, the way that my music
can reach my fans is unlimited. I've never wanted to think in a
limited way and with this new partnership, the possibilities are
endless." The singer still owes Warner Bros. Records another
studio album and a greatest hits album Shares of Live Nation rose
8 cents to $21.50 during afternoon trading.
Under terms of the deal, Madonna, 49, would receive a signing bonus
of about $18 million and a roughly $17 million advance for each
of three albums, the person said. A portion of the compensation
would involve stock, the person told the AP. "I am thrilled
that Madonna, who is also now a shareholder in our company, has
joined with us to create a new business model for our industry,"
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said. Madonna has been nominated
for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. Other
noms include: The Beastie Boys, the Dave Clark Five, Leonard Cohen,
Afrika Bambaataa, John Mellencamp, the Ventures, Donna Summer and
Chic
Universal
Music chief Doug Morris has enlisted Sony BMG Music Entertainment
as a potential partner and is talking to Warner Music Group. Together
the three would control about 75% of the music sold in the US Besides
competing head-on with Apple Inc.'s (AAPL ) music store, Morris
and his allies hope to move digital music beyond the iPod-iTunes
universe by nurturing the likes of Microsoft's Zune media player
and Sony's PlayStation and by working with the wireless carriers.
The service, which is one of several initiatives the music majors
are considering to help reverse sliding sales, will be called Total
Music. While the details are in flux, insiders say Morris &
Co. have an intriguing business model: get hardware makers or cell
carriers to absorb the cost of a roughly $5-per-month subscription
fee so consumers get a device with all-you-can-eat music that's
essentially free. Music companies would collect the subscription
fee, while hardware makers theoretically would move many more players.
"Doug is doing the right thing taking on Steve Jobs,"
says ex-MCA Records Chairman Irving Azoff, whose Azoff Music Management
Group represents the Eagles, Journey, Christina Aguilera, and others.
"The artists are behind him."The split with record labels--Apple
takes 29 cents of the 99 cents--"is indecent," Vivendi
CEO Jean-Bernard Levy told reporters in September. "Our contracts
give too good a share to Apple." In August, Morris announced
a five-month test with Wal-Mart (WMT ), Google (GOOG ), and Best
Buy (BBY ). The three companies will sell music downloads that can
be played on any device. It has yet to be seen whether the makers
of music players and phones can make enough to cover the cost of
baking in the subscription. Under one scenario industry insiders
figure the cost per player would amount to about $90 (assuming people
hang on to a music player or phone for 18 months before upgrading.
18x $5 subscription fee = 90).
Radiohead
has made a new record. You can pre-order the self-released effort
from their website right now as a download or a discbox.
If you decide to download only, you can pay whatever you like. That's
right, there is no set price! Someone could pay 50 dollars or 10
cents. Got to love the new music economy...more like the wild west!
This is all anybody is talking about in the music industry
today, said Bertis Downs, the longtime manager of R.E.M. This
is the sort of model that people have been talking about doing,
but this is the first time an act of this stature has stepped up
and done it. . . . They were a band that could go off the grid,
and they did it. We plan to tour next year, starting in May
through to probably the end of the year. With lots of holidays in
that period," says Bryce Edge of Courtyard Management, the
firm that manages Radiohead. XL
Recordings will distribute the physical edition of Radiohead's new
album, "In Rainbows," outside the United States, according
to the New York Times. Industry figures indicate that overall sales
of albums are down 14%: from last year at 337.3 million albums sold.
Of that total, 300.6 million were CDs. The number of digitally
downloaded tracks has risen 46% from the same period in 2006 to
612.2 million. Consumers believe sales are down because: A CD with
2 good songs and 12 pieces of crap does not constitute an album.
Meantime, Best
Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target plan to make significant cuts in the amount
of floorspace they devote to CDs: Predictions of cuts that range
from 20% to 40%, with Wal-Mart making the most aggressive pullbacks.
Roughly 12,000 albums are released in an average year. Radiohead's
contract with EMI/Capitol expired after its last record, Hail to
the Thief, was released in 2003; shortly before the band started
writing new songs, singer Thom Yorke told TIME, "I like the
people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have
to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us
some perverse pleasure to say 'F___ you' to this decaying business
model."
Sony
BMG Music and MySpace have partnered: MySpaces 70 million
users will have access to music videos, audio material and other
content, from SONY BMGs artists. The deal calls for MySpace
and SONY BMG to share in sponsorship and advertising revenues. Under
the terms of the deal, SONY BMG will license music videos, select
audio material, and other content from its extensive artist roster
and will make the content available on its artists MySpace
profile pages.
Feature
film re-recording mixers Jon Taylor and Christian P. Minkler have
joined Universal
Studios Sound. The team is mixing on Feature Mixing Stage 6
on the Universal lot. Taylor and Minkler mixed the Academy Award-winning
film Babel, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Their work
on Babel earned them a 2007 BAFTA nomination and a 2007 Cinema Audio
Society Award nomination. The team's recent projects include Gone
Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck, Bobby and Peter Farrelly's The
Heartbreak Kid and The Number 23, directed by Joel Schumacher. "The
technology and support at Universal are tremendous," said Taylor.
"The whole focus here is using the best tools to achieve phenomenal
sound," added Minkler. "We
are very excited to have Jon and Chris on board," said Chris
Jenkins, senior vice president of Universal Studios Sound. "Their
top tier body of work in such diverse genres reflects the deep talent
in this team."
New Era Scoring
Files Charges Against AFOM, Local 47
The battle between
Local 47 and financial core musicians escalated quickly this month
as New
Era Scoring (NES) filed a federal charge against American Federation
of Musicians Local 47. This in response to what the National Right
to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRWF) says is an ugly union
campaign of intimidation, coercion and retaliation against employees
exercising their legal rights.
Facilities
in California used by New Era Scoring
Professional
violinist Sai-Ly Acosta (no relation to Local 47 official John Acosta)
who has played for the New Era Scoring orchestra filed a federal
unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) after union officials enforced a policy, labeled as illegal
by the NRWF, requiring all musicians to be in good standing
with the union in order to practice in a union-owned rehearsal facility
with an orchestra (not NES) which is represented by the union under
a collective bargaining agreement. An NRWF release says that union
officials informed Acosta, who is not a formal member of the AFM
union, that she and others could be arrested if they attended rehearsal.
Orchestras and
other musical groups require that all musicians, as a condition
of employment, participate in certain rehearsals many occurring
in facilities owned by AFM Local 47. However, Acosta and several
of her coworkers exercised their legal right to resign from formal
union membership and become financial core status, and pay a reduced
fee to cover the cost of union bargaining. As a result, according
to the NRWF release, union officials are attempting to unlawfully
prevent her from practicing with the orchestra. Union operatives
have harassed and intimidated the dissenting musicians, calling
them scabs. Financial core status musicians can
work union jobs and accrue benefits like other full union members
on those jobs, but can also work non-union jobs without fear of
penalty by the union.
These
thuggish actions by union officials are both despicable and illegal,
said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work
Legal Defense Foundation. But this union intimidation is all
too common in states like California where there is no Right to
Work law on the books. No one should be forced to pay dues to an
unwanted union just to get or keep their job
Regarding the
charges filed with the National Labor Relations board, General Counsel
Louis Levy said, The allegations that have been submitted
by the National Right to Work Committee are completely denied by
Local 47 and we believe they are false. We believe as the owners
of our property we have the right to regulate the use of our property
consistent with the law, and we will do so.
Greg Townley,
co-founder New Era Scoring, an orchestra that employs financial
core musicians, said, The union has property rights, but the
issue that is relevant here is that property rights do not override
anti-discrimination laws. If the only reason the financial core
musicians are being discriminated against is because they are financial
core, then legally thats just as wrong as denying services
to any group of people based on race or ethnicity.
According to
the NRWF, under the Supreme Court decision in Communications Workers
v. Beck and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials cannot require
formal union membership or the payment of union dues unrelated to
collective bargaining as a condition of employment. Employees are
also entitled to notice of their right to refrain from union membership,
an independent audit of union expenditures, and notice of their
right to object to paying for non-bargaining activities, such as
union political activities.
The NRWF contends
that because Acosta and other musicians exercised their legal rights
under Beck, they have been unlawfully targeted for retaliation.
The unfair labor
practice charge will be reviewed by the NLRB's Regional Director
who will decide whether to take the union to trial before a federal
labor judge.
Drawmerisms
- Twenty-Five Years Young!
Born and raised
on the small Channel Island of Guernsey between England and France,
Ivor Drawmer harbored two passions that would merge to create one
of the most celebrated and enduring pro audio manufacturing companies
in the world. The young Drawmer had a deep curiosity and unique
aptitude for electronics engineering, and he honed his skills at
a test equipment company on Sark. At the same time, he played keyboards
in a number of bands and saw one possible future as a rock star.
To effect that dream, he moved to England in the 1960s to join its
raucous music scene.
It wasn't until many years later that Drawmer found himself in a
recording studio, waiting somewhat impatiently to play his keyboard
overdub, while a frustrated recording engineer fought unsuccessfully
against the limitations of his equipment. Still trying to get the
sound right on the drum kit, the engineer had gated the toms. In
those days, gates where crude, on/off devices, and every time the
drummer hit the crash, the tom mics opened and fairly vomited an
unpleasant gnashing sound. Drawmer told the engineer that he could
solve his problem and returned the next day with a primitive-looking
circuit board that had two jacks hanging off it. The engineer put
it in line, and Drawmer adjusted one of the pots that dangled from
its wiry frame. To the engineer's amazement, even the softest tom
hit opened the gate while the loudest cymbal crash did nothing.
What Drawmer had designed was the world's first frequency-conscious
gate. By forcing the key to listen only to low frequencies, of which
toms have plenty and crashes have almost none, the gate became a
much more sensitive tool. That design ultimately became the Drawmer
DS201, which still sells at a brisk pace and is the most frequently
requested gate on touring riders to this day. However, if we step
back from the specifics of this particular anecdote, it is easy
to see that the same process fueled and continues to fuel all of
Drawmer's innovations. He has a knack for recognizing problems,
many of which were assumed to be insolvable, and then fixing them
with clever, musically-intuitive and sonically superior devices.
However, the genius of Ivor Drawmer might have been lost on the
world were it not for the endlessly energetic promotion of sales
principal, Ken Giles. Himself a musician and sound engineer who
cut his teeth in the 1960s UK heyday, Giles moved into pro audio
distribution. Giles recognized the spark in Drawmer that could be
stoked into a fire and has dedicated himself, almost from the beginning,
to promoting and distributing Drawmer's innovative designs.
While Ivor Drawmer has slowly collected a small, trusted research
and development team, every Drawmer product is ultimately designed
by Ivor himself. Related Giles, "Even the software is coded
by Ivor! He's really unique in the industry. The same man who designed
the DS201 gate and the 1960 pre/compressor writes the code for the
2476 mastering software and the TourBuss plug-ins. When he's not
working with capacitors and a soldering iron, he's working with
a keyboard and a mouse."
Giles coined the term "Drawmerisms" to describe the multitude
of features and innovations that are unique to the Drawmer brand.
Every Drawmerism starts as a sound engineering problem either that
someone on the R&D staff has encountered, that someone has read
about, or that customers have related. "The inspirations for
my designs evolve," explained Drawmer. "I try to come
up with a different angle on things. For example, when I heard people
complaining that any time they compressed a track with a lot of
low end, the high end ducked out. It took some doing, but I engineered
a solution. The DL251 was every bit as musical and functional as
an ordinary compressor, but by treating different frequency bands
separately, it worked elegantly around that problem."
In addition to the original DS201 gate, Drawmer's venerable 1960
pre/compressor stands as an excellent example of a "Drawmerism."
In the early 1980s, high-end studios were rediscovering the beautiful
sounds of old Pultec and Fairchild outboard equipment. Unfortunately,
according to Giles, these units were dreadfully unreliable. Drawmer
saw the value in that sound but realized that vastly more stable
designs were possible. At the same time, no one was offering a single
input channel. If all you wanted to do was record two microphones,
you had to bring them into a mixing board!
Drawmer recognized a need for an excellent-sounding, stand alone
input processor that captured the beauty of the Pultec and Fairchild
units. And thus, in 1983, the Drawmer 1960 was born, named in honor
of the sound it embodied.
Now, of course, everyone from Paul McCartney to Madonna tracks with
1960s. "Digital recording has put a premium on the input sound,"
commented Giles. "The 1960 was definitely on the leading edge
of that wave. Now it has been reborn in variations such as the 1968
and 1969. The long list of Drawmerisms goes on. Drawmer was the
first person to incorporate program adaptive gating. He implemented
peak punch to re-inject transients into gated percussion. He pioneered
tube drive so that users could drive tubes as hard as they wanted
without increasing the output gain. The list goes on and on."
Of course that list continues into the digital domain. Ivor Drawmer
was among the pioneers who sought to inject life into digital audio
in the 1990s. "When digital gear first became available, the
complaints were quick to follow," commented Drawmer. "They
said, 'yes, it's fine, but it all the sounds the same - sterile.'
I started playing with little programs to emulate analog circuitry
15 years ago - little code that, charged up, simulated capacitors,
etc. I saw that it worked, but to make it better we actually had
to engineer in pleasing imperfections. That's where the art lies.
It's easy enough to design a digital compressor, but if you want
it to sound good, then you need to do something more. You need to
be less mathematical and more practical."
Drawmer started out making high-end signal processing equipment
for recording studios and live sound, but their market reach has
expanded considerably because they're always ready to offer a unique
solution to a sound engineering problem. "Twenty-five years
later, people still call us the noise gate company," Giles
laughed. "And that's fine; I think it shows that if you're
first to the market then you hold a permanent place there. However,
if we'd continued to only make noise gates, we'd have a rough go
of it. We're certainly grateful that the 1960 and our other flagship
products continue to do so well after all this time, but now we
have products in software, live sound, digital distribution, master
clocks, industrial installation, and others. In each case, Ivor
still does the final design!"
Interestingly, while much of Drawmer's product line is shifting
in the digital direction, one very important new series bucks that
trend. In honor of the 25th Anniversary of Drawmer the company,
Drawmer the man has designed a new series of analogue signal processors.
Dubbed the "Signature Series," Drawmer has shaken off
all engineering concerns save one - absolute fidelity. Price point
is no concern, and thus there are no compromises. The S3 three-band
tube compressor has started to ship and will be followed by other
products in the line.
"The strength of Drawmer has always been, and will always be,
the innovations," reflected Giles. "Those innovations
have had a significant impact on recording and live sound; many
have influenced the production techniques which have evolved and
the way the industry makes music. The whole suite of gating tricks
that every engineer worth his or her salt knows goes back to Drawmer.
The 'direct in' style of minimal chain length recording goes back
to Drawmer. And so many of Drawmer's innovations have shown up in
the products of other manufacturers, although I would submit with
inferior implementation! So Drawmer designs have influenced and
shaped the competition and in doing so, the world of pro audio.
"In some ways it's quite amazing that we keep selling all of
our old hits in addition to the new products," he continued.
"Because our products last decades, you're forced to wonder
where all the new units are going. I've never heard of someone throwing
away a piece of Drawmer equipment! We make everything right here
in England, which makes it a little more expensive than if we outsourced
everything. But I think our customers recoup that cost many times
over since our products last and last."
As larger companies come to dominate the pro audio world, some question
whether smaller specialist companies like Drawmer will survive.
Giles thinks their survival is assured: "We'll stay true to
our original mission, solving problems and improving the world of
pro audio with Drawmerisms that have yet to be invented. There's
something to be said for companies who have been operating for 25
years with the same principals and staff. The larger companies have
a regular turnover of staff and often very little employee loyalty.
The dynamics at Drawmer are very different - pun intended."
For more info on Drawmer
products, contact Brad
Lunde at www.transaudiogroup.com
or Phone (702) 307-2700

TransAudio Group,
founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, has quickly become the premier
US importer/distributor and/or US sales and marketing representative
for high-end audio. Success hinges on TransAudio providing dealers
and end users with a higher standard of product expertise and support
far beyond the norm. TAG product line includes Accusound,
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