www.psneurope.com
February 2013 l 21 LONDON/WORLD Studio
Former Waves Audio staffer Shachar Gilad wants to help audio professionals find work through a new online platform, writes Erica Basnicki
SOUNDBETTER IS a new online portal connecting musicians with audio engineers. It launched in London in early February following successful events in Berlin and New York. SoundBetter enables audio
professionals, from bedroom producers to large-scale studios, to market their services based on the popular ‘freemium’ model (a basic account is free, with paid-for upgrades available), and allows musicians to easily find an engineer based on a range of criteria including specialty, budget, genre, credits, reviews and location. “Until today there hasn’t really been a place for audio engineers to solicit for more work other than word of mouth or maybe sometimes Gumtree or building their own websites, which is quite a lot of work,” says SoundBetter founder Shachar Gilad, previously from Waves Audio and Apple Inc. “We want to get
UNITED KINGDOM Win with Abbey Road and Avid By Erica Basnicki
ABBEY ROAD Studios and Avid have teamed up for a song contest that gives aspiring artists, musicians and producers the chance to have their work judged by a panel of key music industry figures, as well as fans online.
Artists can upload their original song via the Abbey Road website until 13 March, with the winners of the Judges choice, Fans choice and Judges choice runner-up being announced on 10 April. Voting for the Fans choice award runs online from 14-21 March 2013.
Enter and win with Abbey Road and Avid The judging panel comprises
Greg Wells (Adele, Katy Perry); John Feldmann (Goldfinger, Good Charlotte); and Tricky Stewart (Beyoncé,
Mariah Carey, Rihanna). The three winning artists will
receive a prize package that includes having a track of their choice mixed and mastered
to the point where if anybody is looking for an audio professional, they know this is where they need to go.” On hand via Skype for the London launch was Grammy Award-winning engineer Ed Cherney (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton), himself a SoundBetter member. “I think it’s a brilliant idea.
Traditionally the way you would get work was someone would see your name on an album, like the record, track you down and hire you. Now most of my work comes from artists, and I would say 80% of them are independent artists. This is the modern way to do it.” Both Cherney and four-time
Grammy Award-winning mix engineer Manny Marroquin (Bruno Mars, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Rihanna) are among the members who will sit on the company’s board of advisors. “It was really flattering to see
how willing they were to jump in,”
Shachar Gilad, founder of SoundBetter, finder of work
says Gilad. “They would never do that if they didn’t think this was something that was not just going to succeed as a business, but also that gives back to the industry. It solves a pain point for people.” Gilad won’t say just how many SoundBetter users there are, but admits: “I thought it would take a lot longer to get to the number of signups we have so far. It’s well beyond my expectations.” Going forward, Gilad has his sights set on launch events in Spain and Japan, and plans to introduce a complementary portal for musicians to offer their skills to producers. “We’re fully committed to just plowing ahead and making sure
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SOUNDBITES
Mackie has sold the Tracktion music production software back to its original developer, Julian Storer. Storer, along with James Woodburn and Dave Christenson (both formerly from Mackie), lead the newly-formed Tracktion Software Corporation (TSC). In addition to acquiring the software, TSC has announced that Tracktion 4 is available immediately. It is the first full version update since Tracktion 3 was released in 2007.
www.tracktion.com
What kind of engineer are you looking for? SoundBetter can help
that everybody who’s on there and has something to offer will get work out of this.”n
www.soundbetter.com
online by Abbey Road Studios, as well as a Pro Tools HD Native system.
“This competition is the perfect way for artists to get their music out there and I’m really looking forward to listening to an eclectic mix of songs,” said Wells. In related news, following the success of last year’s public presentations Abbey Road Studios has announced even more talks for 2013. New content includes film score sync demonstrations, vintage four- track mixing console and tape machine demonstrations, and demos of the studio’s famous echo chamber. n
www.abbeyroad.com www.avid.com www.seetickets.com/tour/abbey- road-studios
KMR Audio has supplied a pair of ATC SCM50 monitors to Soho’s Dean Street Studios to replace the previous pair in Studio 1. The new monitors were installed at the request of engineer Austen Jux-Chandler: “The room has its own characteristics and although we have only had the new set of ATCs for about a month, they are already sounding pretty incredible.”
www.kmraudio.com
Nova Distribution will be distributing two new products from Swedish manufacturer Lindell Audio. The first is the AMPX, a Class A studio standard power amplifier featuring a dual mono design with completely separated power supplies. The second is the DACX, a high-end digital-to- analogue converter that uses the renowned AK4397 D-A chip at the output stage.
www.nova-distribution.co.uk
SAE in Bucharest has installed an Audient ASP8024 analogue desk, following in the footsteps of its Dutch counterpart SAE Amsterdam, which also started this academic year with a new 36-channel ASP8024 console. “The simplistic layout of the channel strip and centre section has been a great teaching tool,” said head of audio Andrew James Ward. “Explaining the fundamentals of analogue signal flow to newcomers has been easy on this console.”
www.audient.com
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