Recording Studios And Aes: Industry In Flux

Though new formats, studio consolidation and personnel shifts are making for an unsettled present, emerging technologies promise a bright-and fun-future.

With the end of the millennium just around the corner, the professional-audio industry is preparing to gather for an Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention that promises to yield an unprecedented number of ground-breaking product introductions, as well as reflections on a decade that brought more paradigm shifts to the recording arena than any other 10-year period in its history.
At press time, many of the companies that made a significant impact on the industry in the '90s were hinting at eye-opening product debuts, though none offered specifics.
However, if recent events are any indication, there will be significant developments in the areas of high-
resolution digital, audio streaming and the integration of audio and video functions in a workstation environment.

FORMAT FUTURES
With DVD Audio and Super Audio CD (SACD) already in the marketplace in Japan and Europe, and making their U.S. debuts imminently, the stage is finally set for consumers to enjoy a sound quality comparable to what audio engineers have been hearing in their control rooms for the better part of the '90s.
Ever since 20-bit conversion became a key ingredient in the audio-production process starting in the early '90s, engineers have, on one hand, pushed the audio-resolution envelope, but, on the other hand, have had to compromise the quality of their work for final release due to CD's limitations.
The new sound carriers should change all that. What's more,
surround-sound formats for both music and film applications should open up new vistas for studio professionals and music fans alike. Again, the studio technology has been there for years, but until now, one could only enjoy it at its fullest in a recording, mixing, mastering or postproduction suite.

STUDIO SWAPPING
If the technical side of the industry is advancing at a dizzying pace, the business end has also been hyperactive lately. In the past 12 months, some of the bedrock studios in the industry have changed hands and many of the leading engineers-particularly in the mastering world-have moved on to new jobs.
Sterling Sound underwent a management buyout in September 1998 and entered into a joint venture with London complex Metropolis. Then, in December 1998, Nashville powerhouse Emerald acquired former competitor Masterfonics, which had been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a year. In another Nashville studio deal, Seventeen Grand Recording acquired the technology and business assets of Love Shack Studios, a facility owned by songwriter/ publisher Vern Dant.
The business activity only intensified after the new year. In January 1999, the Hit Factory-a prime mover in the New York music scene-bought legendary Miami studio Criteria, and Los Angeles and Nashville studio entrepreneur Allen Sides sold three of the 10 rooms that comprised his L.A. Ocean Way complex to Cello Studios.
Soon after that contraction, however, Sides seized an opportunity to expand into a building adjacent to his Ocean Way Hollywood spread. Sides promptly outfitted the site with a 5.1-channel mix room, another control room, overdubbing space and tie lines to the pre-existing Ocean Way studios.

CHANGING POSITIONS
This whirlwind of business activity coincided with a flurry of changes in the normally stable mastering arena.
Many of the moves had to do with personal issues, but they created a domino effect that threatened the bottom lines of some of the industry's most vaunted shops.
Among the well-known engineers changing affiliations in the past 12 months were Greg Calbi (from Masterdisk to Sterling Sound in the aforementioned management buyout), Scott Hull (from Masterdisk to Classic Sound) and Stephen Marcussen (from longtime home Precision Mastering to a temporary position at A&M Studios, while he builds his own place).
Hull was replaced at Masterdisk by former Absolute Audio engineer Leon Zervos, while Marcussen's void was filled by Rick Essig, formerly of New York facility Frankford Wayne, and Tom Baker, a veteran of Oasis and Future Disc Systems.
In other mastering news, Robert Vosgien joined Capitol Mastering from CMS Mastering in Pasadena, Calif.; Ron Boustead left Precision to fill Vosgien's slot at CMS; and Joe Palmaccio went from Sterling Sound to Sony Music Studios.
For a while, it seemed like the entire mastering business would be touched by this series of events. However, at least for now, things seem to have quieted down.
"The dust has settled for now," says Precision Mastering owner Larry Emerine. "I don't think you're going to see more big changes in the near future."
It's just as well that studio owners and staff engineers can get back to the business at hand. After all, they are contending with a profusion of formats-not just DVD Video, DVD Audio and SACD, but also various surround-sound technologies and audio-streaming formats like Liquid Audio and Real Audio, as well as popular file format MP3-and an increasingly competitive environment.
Besides, if the AES convention lives up to its pre-show buzz, there will be lots of new toys under the Christmas tree to keep studio owners, engineers and artists occupied.n