20 l May 2012
www.prosoundnewseurope.com
studionews Keeping track ITALY
Suonificio studio launches new Transcriptor division, writes Mike Clark
MILAN’S SUONIFICIO Studio, opened five years ago by sound engineers Esaù Remor and Daniele Tuccari, recently inaugurated Transcriptor, a new division dedicated to the transcription of analogue (and digital) audio tape recordings to high definition. The new set-up sits alongside
the existing post production, mastering, sound design and dubbing zone, equipped with a Fairlight Dream II and Miller & Kreisel 5.1, where projects to date have included the Italian edition of the TV series Family Business, the film The Counting House and the cartoons Terkel in Trouble and Summer Wars. The Transcriptor zone features a control room and relative machine room with an impressive array of hardware enabling analogue recordings on virtually any pro and semi-pro tape format to be transcribed to Hard Disk.
Staff: “There is a seed change in attitude to sound, with people these days talking more about quality and not just level”
Tuccari says: “It’s impossible to
say how much was invested in the machines, as Esaù collected them over a period of more than 10 years and put considerable time and resources into their recovery and maintenance, with Studer machine expert and maintenance wizard Virginio Fusaro.” Remor and Tuccari realised
that, with the advent of DAWs, the majority of studios had eliminated tape recorders and consequently all that remained of these productions were session track tapes – from 1/4-inch 2-track to 2-inch 24-track in the case of analogue recordings. Even if these had been preserved correctly, they were destined to deteriorate. Transcriptor offers clients the possibility of recovering tapes’ contents before it’s too late, including any treatment that may be necessary, such as lubrication or baking. Remor generally does the transcription work, whereas
Tuccari handles mastering. As well as the remote controls of some machines (Studer A820, Sony 3348, Mitsubishi X880 and Otari MX80), the new control
Time spent collecting and restoring the kit in the new division
10 By David Davies UNITED KINGDOM New MPG Mastering Group By Erica Basnicki
THE MUSIC Producers Guild officially launches its new Mastering Group on 24 May to promote new standards and a QC process that the group hopes the entire industry will adopt. The launch will take place at Alchemea College in London, where MPG Mastering Group administrator and veteran AIR Studios mastering engineer Ray Staff will introduce a set of guidelines that aim to prevent
the wrong masters from ending up in the CD manufacturing chain, something that has been a problem in the industry recently. “Many of those working in the mastering business already know the process but there are a lot of people who are new to mastering or are working in small home- based facilities that need guidelines and need a structure that establishes a clear chain of responsibility,” said Staff. Register your interest at:
mastering_group@mpg.org.uk
THE PASSAGEinto law of the anti-piracy Digital Economy Act (the DEA) in early 2010 constituted one of the final significant achievements of the last UK government. But in the latest twist for this enduringly controversial piece of legislation, it has been revealed that measures requiring the distribution of letters to suspected illegal downloaders will not be enforced until 2014 at the earliest – in other words, shortly before the current parliament is due to conclude. The legislation surmounted a major obstacle in March when leading ISPs BT and TalkTalk lost their two-year bid to have the act overturned on the grounds of
room hosts an EMT 16/4/1 console, with discrete components and Beyer input transformers on the mic and line channels. Outboards consist of an EMT
UNITED KINGDOM
Anti-piracy measures delayed until 2014
Steve Levine speaking at the MPG Awards in February
alleged incompatibility with European law. Nonetheless, the practicalities of implementing the act – which calls for the distribution of warning letters to suspected copyright infringers and the threat of disconnection – remain the subject of fine-tuning. While news of the latest delay was broadly welcomed by the ISP
years
peak limiter, EMT multiband compressor, ITI/Massenburg 230 EQ, K&H UE400 EQ and Klark Teknik spectrum analyser. Monitors are B&W 801 Nautilus, powered by a pair of FM Acoustics FM 1000 amps. Fattening is carried out with the A820 + DolbySR, giving a precise, reliable analogue passage, and maintaining high dynamics, whereas, for a decidedly vintage sound, the facility’s 3M 8-track unit is the most suitable machine. The studio’s EMT console is
proposed for analogue stem mastering, with its 16 line channels used for stereo or mono stems, which thus benefit from the Beyer transformers’ sound and the individual
The new control room features an EMT 16/4/1 console
correction of the channel’s EQ. The resulting signal is then ‘shaped’ by the ITI and K+H EQs and compressed/limited by the two EMT systems. The master can then be entrusted to a stereo analogue recorder, before being transferred to HD. Tuccari concludes: “We began
work in February and have already transcribed 4- and 8-rack ’60s sessions and 8- and 16-track tapes of ’70s recordings for one of Italy’s longest-lasting and most successful pop artists. Sooner or later, anybody with repertory on tape will have to ensure the preservation of their audio archives – our workflow will depend on potential clients’ awareness and determination.”
www.suonificio.it
community, leading creative and cultural industry organisations professed frustration at a further delay to legislation designed to protect revenue streams which are under ever-increasing pressure from illegal downloading. Emphasising the importance
of the UK music sector at home and abroad, a BPI spokesperson told PSNEurope: “It has been two years now since the [DEA] was passed, and we have still not had the Code published. It is time for the government to take decisive action.” MPG chairman Steve Levine admitted that the introduction of the DEA was necessarily time- consuming. “Obviously we are very disappointed that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport isn’t able to act faster with regard to sending out the first letters, but we accept that there is a procedure to be followed,” he said. “The MPG is working behind the scenes on a number of other issues relating to this act, which may ultimately help to speed things up.”
www.culture.gov.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60