Category: Focusrite

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American Music & Sound Makes Key Executive Changes 

Exertis | Jam, the leading Pro Audio, MI and CE distributor in the United States and Canada, today announced two key leadership appointments. Lynn Martin, the founder and long-time President of American Music & Sound will fill the new role of Director of Strategic Development for Exertis | Jam. Pat Sullivan has been tapped to fill the role of President of American Music & Sound. 

American Music & Sound, an Exertis | Jam business, has been led by Lynn Martin for almost 20 years. Given his stellar track record and keen eye for new products, companies and wider consumer trends, Martin will now fill a wider role as the Director of Strategic Development across Exertis | Jam. Replacing Martin as President, American Music & Sound is Patrick Sullivan, recent President of InMusic and past Vice President, Merchandizing at Guitar Center. 

Marty Szpiro, President, Exertis North America comments, “Lynn is an industry legend and a friend, he has done brilliant work developing and leading American Music and Sound (AM&S). Pat has had a stellar career and is highly respected across the Pro Audio and MI world. We welcome Pat and look forward to great things under his leadership.” 

Stuart Frenkel, President, Exertis | Jam states, “We are all delighted that Lynn will stay with the team and look forward to working with him in his new role. It’s great to have Pat on board bringing his exciting new view and ideas to our mission.” 

Despite sales exceeding $400 million annually, Exertis | Jam remains a customer-centric company at heart. Even as growth accelerated through acquisition and diversification, the company realized that each division – whether it be MI, CE, PA or lighting – had its own unique way of doing business. AM&S has demonstrated their high level of success from day one through superior supply chain management, excellent customer service for dealers and end users, superb sales management, world-class marketing and aggressive promotion. Today AM&S distributes and supports brands such as Allen & Heath, CAD, Focusrite, Fostex, Glorious, Hercules, Kurzweil, Nord, Novation, PLAYdifferently, Reloop, Studiologic and Xone. 

“What a great ride this has been with Jam and AM&S over the decades,” Martin notes. “I was there at the birth of the division, and have seen huge growth, all thanks to our great partnerships with fantastic brands. I am delighted to hand off the stewardship to Pat, we couldn’t have a better person in place for this transition. I look forward to playing an important role strategically in the future and will support Pat where I can.” 

Sullivan adds, “I am excited to join the growing Exertis | Jam team and build on the success that Lynn and the AM&S team have created. Their perspective on the opportunities within the industry match completely with my experience and vision for the future.”

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Focusrite

Production & Post-Production House Expands Its Manhattan Facilities

Sim is a leading equipment rental, production and post-production company with locations in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and Atlanta. They have recently completed a major expansion of their post-production facility in downtown Manhattan, NY. Of the seven new rooms there, four accommodate audio, including three 5.1 surround mix suites, one with Dolby Atmos® capability, and an ADR/VO recording studio, which can accommodate as many as five actors. All four new audio rooms and a central machine room are linked using a network employing components from Focusrite’s RedNet range of Dante® networked audio converters and interfaces.  Four RedNet 5 Pro Tools® | HD bridges are located in the machine room, feeding the Pro Tools systems in each of the three broadcast audio mix suites. Two of those suites are equipped with RedNet 1 eight-channel A-D/D-A interfaces, while all three suites have RedNet 2 and/or RedNet A16R 16-Channel A-D/D-A interfaces. These three types of RedNet interface create a robust, efficient and effective AoIP infrastructure that has vastly streamlined the workflow for Sim. 

In addition, Focusrite RedNet X2P 2×2 Dante audio interfaces are used elsewhere in Sim, to expand the Dante network for ancillary operations. In the large theater, ad-hoc recordings can be captured using a shotgun mic and an X2P, and tracked straight into a Pro Tools project. In the facility’s various vocal booths, X2Ps provide mic preamps for VO mics, and headphones mixes for talent, all from within one compact box that can be powered via PoE. 

The new studio resources are geared toward scripted television, as Sim Post seeks to support the current boom in broadcast and streaming production. Recent TV credits for Sim New York include the MTV VMAs, Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men for Showtime, and Deal or No Deal for NBC; recent film credits include Motherless Brooklyn for Warner Bros. (fall 2019) and Someone Great for Netflix. “We are responding to an acute need for more high-quality post services in New York, especially for television,” says Sim Post New York Partner and Vice President Kim Spikes. “Our new sound and picture resources are designed to meet the finishing and delivery needs of those scripted productions.”

The RedNet audio network is critical to making that happen, says Liam Ford, Sim’s Senior Vice President, Post Engineering. “RedNet lets us connect all of these spaces together on single strands of Ethernet cable, instead of the dozens of copper cables we’d need otherwise, which is a huge cost savings,” he says. “Also, we have much greater flexibility from putting our Pro Tools systems in a central location and networking from there to each mix room. That way, our editors can continue working on the Pro Tools deck of their choice, configured the way they want it, in any of the rooms, because the Pro Tools systems aren’t locked to a particular room. In addition, when we need extra processing power, we can connect multiple Pro Tools stations together on the network. And we have all of our related audio, such as recording and talkback mics, on that same RedNet network. It’s a full AoIP system.” 

The new studios, which came on line earlier in 2019, can also serve as a template for future audio-post expansions. “In the event we expand to other cities, what we’ve done in New York with RedNet is the model for how to do it going forward,” he says. “The advantages it offers, at a time when we’re so busy and the amount of work continues to grow, are incredible!”

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Focusrite

23dB Productions Launches New Studio Employing Connectivity Solutions from Focusrite

After five years spent building a successful and respected brand for its work in music production, live-sound recording and mixing, and podcast production, 23dB Productions now has a new studio facility in Ft. Lee, New Jersey. A backbone of their workflow is their arsenal of Focusrite interfaces: the ISA Two microphone preamp; multiple Clarett 8Pre Thunderbolt audio interfaces; the Scarlett OctoPre eight-channel mic preamp; and a highly portable Scarlett 2i2 interface. No matter what the project is, in the studio, on the road or on location, Focusrite is how 23dB Productions – and its co-owners Fela Davis (Above Left) and Denis Orynbekov (Above Right) – connect to the world.

23DB PRODUCTIONS LAUNCHES NEW STUDIO EMPLOYING CONNECTIVITY SOLUTIONS FROM FOCUSRITE

There’s plenty to connect with. Since they began in 2014, 23dB Productions’ portfolio has grown to be sizable and diverse. It includes The Art of Music Tech, a video web series interviewing legendary engineers, producers, and musicians such as Leslie Ann Jones, Jeff Bova, and Matt Knobel, among others. They’ve also mixed live and in the studio for such acclaimed and diverse acts as Swiss Chris, Ron Carter, Jose Feliciano, Meshell Ndegeocello and Christian McBride, for whom they also now produce the Low Down podcast and show on Sirius XM Radio’s Real Jazz channel. Their mobile recording services have been deployed at Live Nation NYC venues Music Hall of Williamsburg and Bowery Ballroom, and they’re involved with archiving for the Jazz Museum’s oral-history initiative Harlem Speaks, an interview series whose guests have included bassist Reggie Workman, historian and scholar Dan Morgenstern, writer Stanley Crouch, and NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

With that kind of client range, sonic quality and reliable performance are critical, and Focusrite provides plenty of both for 23dB Productions. “The Clarett interfaces are fantastic, both as mic pre’s and as converters,” says Orynbekov, who has recorded, mixed and mastered tracks for MTV’s Real World Explosion, PBS Roadtrip Nation, and Best In Ink on Oxygen. “It lets us operate at 24/96 when we choose to, and we’re able to run two or three sets of monitors through it. It’s our main interface with the Logic software we use for recording and editing.” Outside the studio, the Scarlett 2i2 is a lightweight but powerful portable interface for remote projects, including recent multitrack projects for Atlantic Records. “We’ve been using Focusrite gear now for a little over three years, and it’s changed how we work,” says Davis. “We have access to the same great mic pre’s and converters in the studio and on location, which means we have consistently great-sounding results on every project. Compared to what we had been using before, everything now is so much easier with Focusrite, because the sound is always right there, you don’t have to work to get it, so we’re more productive. Focusrite has been as good for our business as it has been for our sound.”