New Video interviews!
Al Schmitt, Chris Fogel and Steve Marcusson

studioexpresso in alliance with the following affiliates is pleased to bring you these interviews. Big thanks to: Record Production & Babblefish

Look for more interviews in the coming months with Greg Ladanyi, Joseph MaGee, Lloyd Tolbert & Ralph Sutton, Micahel C. Ross...
To view click on the producer/engineer name. Get your free Real One Player download.

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Next time you're in L.A., take a moment to check out the Zeeta or give Westwood Music a call at 310-478-4251.
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"Express Tour" of following world-class studios available here: express tour gallery!

Take a Soundcastle express tour!

Soundcastle calling...There's Gold in Them Hollywood Hills!

...and Platinum...Ashanti's self-titled debut recorded at Soundcastle has sold over a million in less than a month. We met up with owner Buddy King & studio manager Pat Kane who are celebrating the studio's 25th anniversary and learned about recent remodel, updates and future plans.

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Chris Fogel (link to SE profile), engineer/mixer/remixer/programmer
The Sweetest Thing, Seal, Alanis Morissette

O' Boy! We met up with proud dad of a new baby boy, Chris at his private studio (Fig) where he speaks about mixing some of the hottest sounds on the charts.

New! watch the Chris Fogel interview.
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Steve Sykes (link to SE profile), producer/engineer/mixer/musician
Jeff Golub, David Benoit, David Lanz and Peter White

Sykes has four albums in the Contemporary Jazz charts top twenty to his credit: Jeff Golub, David Benoit, David Lanz and Peter White. Read more and listen to some of his work here: SteveSykes.com

Al Schmitt (link to SE profile), engineer/mixer/producer

We sat down with 11-time Grammy winner Al Schmitt at the legendary Capitol Studios where he talks about making records from Henri Mancini to Diana krall. Many more...

New! watch the Al Schmitt interview from Capitol Records
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L-R clockwise: Lynn Carey Saylor (Skip Saylor Recording), Thomas (Beno) May (Bernie Grundman Mastering), Barry Rudolph, Natalie stocker (EMTEC), Jean Tardibuono(EMTEC), Candace Stewart (Cello), Michael C. Ross, Greg Goldman, Nancy Matter (Moonlight Mastering).

Are you backing up your sessions?

Pro Tools HD systems are revolutionizing the way people work with audio, and changing the landscape of hard drive storage and data archiving. With higher sampling rates come bigger files and larger storage requirements.

EMTEC offers a solution -- the LTO Archiving System comes with IBM 3580 Ultra SCSI drive, and Mezzo Generation 4 software which lets you archive your Pro Tools session in the background. Bernie Grundman Mastering hosted the May 15th event where studio managers, producers and engineers got to check out the system up close.

Who's using it? Sony Imageworks, Sony Pix sound Dept. 20th Century Fox Post, MTV, Buena Vista Home Video, Universal studios, Library of Congress and ET (Paramount Pix), to name a few.

For more info: contact EMTEC
Doug Bernhardt 800-380-5470 or Thom Salisbury 800-852-4478

Web Radio in the News: So much for synergy between the former AOL and Time Warner which finds its Divisions at odds Over Online Music Royalties

According to a national random survey of 2,500 people from 2000 to 2002, the percentage of Americans over the age of 12 who have listened to a radio station over the Internet has grown from 10% to 25%. This growth has gotten the attention of record companies and Internet radio stations alike.

Two weeks ago, over 500 Webcasters and radio-station Internet simulcasters observed a "Day of Silence" to protest proposed Web royalty rates, but the Recording Artists Coalition and other recording industry groups protested the protest in an open letter reminding people that "if those who make the music we all love are not fairly compensated for their work, that will be the result-silence. But the biggest Internet radio station of all, run by AOL TIME Warner's America Online service, kept playing music all day long.

A big part of the reason: America Online wants to keep the peace with a sister division, Warner Music Group, which is fighting for the royalties for its recording artists and labels.

"It would appear that AOL has found itself on both sides of the table," says Raghav Gupta, chief operating officer of Live365 Inc., one of the small web radio stations that is fighting the royalties.

"In this one specific case we chose not to participate in a public-relations ploy by a small number of Webcasters," says Dawn Bridges, a Warner Music spokeswoman. "We are continuing to participate actively in the process of discussing substantive issues with the other RIAA and SoundExchange companies." (Full report In Wall Street Marketplace 5/15).

EMI major refinances nearly $2 bil, slashes 1,800 jobs, cuts 400 acts from roster

According to EMI Recorded Music chairman and CEO Alain Levy, the industry hadn't grown during the past five years. He cited several reasons for that, including a serious piracy problem in Aisa, Latin America and southern Europe and the fact that the industry did not have a hold on digital distribution. "We are allowing a whole generation to believe that music should somehow be free," Levy said. And we've allowed the hardware industry to absolve themselves of the responsibility for defending a fundamental law called protection of intellectual property."

Levy also admitted that the record industry has been unable to generate enough superstars -- artist who can consistently sell 10 million albums. "Not having star power tends to take the magic out of music," he said. "When people buy a record, they not only buy music, they also buy a bond to the artist. Not having stars tends to make music a commodity and depreciate this value. We believe the talent is there, but the industry has lost sight of the levels of investment in time and money that is required to build these superstars."

Virgin Records -- run by chairman and CEO Matt Serletic and president and chief operating officer Roy Lott -- will be headquartered in New York. (source: The Hollywood Reporter 3/21/02)

Billboard charts
Top 100 Positions /Issue Date:May 18, 2002

"You hear 3 notes
and you know it's Herb Alpert!"

( Miles Davis from a 1989 interview )

Vivendi Mess, Brass To Their Ears:
$250 Million due to recording icon figures Alpert & Moss. French giant, Vivendi Universal SA's acquisition of Seagram Co two years ago is coming back to haunt the media and utility conglomerate. When it acquired Rondor, Seagram committed to pay founders Messrs. Alpert and Moss the $250 million in cash if the shares of Vivendi Universal fell below $37.50 for 10 consecutive days. The shares of Vivendi have traded under $37.50 every day since April 3, triggering the payment obligation to Rondor.

Rondor is the former publishing arm of A&M Records, the company Alpert & Moss founded in a garage in 1962. Rondor's catalog of copyrighted songs includes works by The Beach Boys, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen. Alpert & Moss sold A&M to PolyGram, then a unit of Philips NV of the Netherlands, in 1989, but retained ownership of Rondor. After Seagram acquired PolyGram in 1998, the two men claimed that the consolidation of the music interests of Seagram's Universal Music Group and PolyGram violated a provision of the 1989 deal, and sued Seagram for $200 million. They dropped the suit as part of the 2000 sale of Rondor to Seagram for six million shares then worth about $350 million and $12.5 million in cash.

Mr. Alpert tapped into Latin music as a trumpet player with his band The Tijuana Brass and produced hits including "The Lonely Bull" and "What Now My Love" in the 1960s. A&M, housed in Charlie Chaplin old studio in Hollywood (currently Hanson Studios) was extremely successful, releasing Carole King's "Tapestry" and works from artists including The Police, Peter Frampton and Janet Jackson. In 1989 it was one of the largest independent record companies around, and PolyGram spent $500 million to acquire it, then considered an astonishing sum. The lawsuit alleged that PolyGram promised to retain the name "A&M" and its relative independence, which it did at first. But in '99, after Seagram's Universal Music acquired PolyGram, A&M was folded in with other record labels and more than 150 of its employees were let go. The lawsuit complained that this was a breach of contract, and was settled as a part of Seagram's acquisition of Rondor. Among the more than 60,000 songs in Rondor's catalog are "Sitting on the Doc of the Bay," "Respect," and "Soul Man." It was efficiency for Universal Music to be able to reunite a portion of these published songs with the original "Masters," or recordings, which had come with its earlier purchase of the record company. Though he and his partner left the company in '93, Mr. Alpert continued to play his trumpet and release occasional records. He also began a career as a sculptor and abstract painter. Mr. Moss enjoyed some success-buying racehorses. (source: Wall Street Journal, May 3rd)

Look for more from these two visionary men!

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