Studio Monitor

MR. PRESIDENT: The Society of Professional Audio Recording Services (SPARS) named a new president Oct. 4 at its annual membership meeting in Los Angeles. David Amlen, president/CEO of Sound on Sound Recording in New York, assumes the SPARS presidency, succeeding Fred Guarino, president of Tiki Recording Studios in Glen Cove, N.Y. The announcement was made by SPARS executive director Larry Lipman.

Amlen, a 13-year member of SPARS, has served three one-year terms as SPARS treasurer. The announcement came on the eve of the 113th Audio Engineering Society Convention, also held in Los Angeles. In this period of economic woe, music business consolidation, and dramatic technological advance (and consequent expansion of powerful recording tools into the hands of countless would-be engineers and producers), the value of SPARS membership, Amlen asserts, is incalculable. "There has always been a measure of home-based or private recording studios," he explains. "But now, the tools that they have access to are very similar to a lot of the tools that we use as part of the bigger picture. The good thing is that it allows people to do work that really didn't belong in the studios before—very mundane stuff that wasn't cost-effective—outside of the studio and to spend as much time on it where it's not costing them by the minute. But the bad thing about it is a lot of the people who buy this stuff figure that because they own it, they have everything that a full-fledged facility has, when they don't have anything close to it and don't know that. That's a danger.

"Working together is something we've really been trying to do," Amlen adds of the commercial-project studio relationship. "SPARS is not an elitist group, but there is a certain knowledge that comes from having people who have been in the industry for 20, 30, 40 years that you can't get without having seen stuff and being a part of it. Those people are approachable. SPARS provides that, and I don't think a lot of people know that."

The digital audio workstation has spawned a new breed of entrepreneur, often based in a personal recording/ mixing/mastering environment representing a small fraction of the investment required of a multi-room, commercial facility. SPARS, Amlen explains, has responded to a changing industry by evolving to better suit the diversity of those providing professional audio services. In 2000, Amlen recalls, he and SPARS officers—Guarino, Lipman, then-president Mike Tarsia (Sigma Sound in Philadelphia), and Zoe Thrall (Hit Factory Studios in New York and Miami)—revised the organization's dues structure. "It was very restricted before," he recalls. "If you ran a studio, you could only be a studio member; if you were an individual, you didn't get any benefits at all. Now we've tiered it so that if you're an individual the cost is reasonable, and if you have more than three people in your organization it's more cost-effective to join as a company where everybody gets benefits."

Those benefits include access to restricted areas on the SPARS Web site (spars.com). "One of the things we're hoping to do, and it's been a very sticky situation, is a sort of 'deadbeat list,' for lack of a better word," Amlen adds. "Some way that members could share, without retribution or liability, 'This is a person I dealt with that was not a good experience. This person is not paying their bills, and you should avoid them.' They have something like this in Los Angeles already, but that's on a regional level. We can do it on a much bigger level."

Lipman also announced three new members on the SPARS board of directors: Leslie Ann Jones, director of music recording and scoring for Skywalker Sound in Marin County, Calif.; Kevin Mills, owner/president of Larrabee Sound Studios in Los Angeles; and Nancy Matter, owner/ engineer of Moonlight Mastering in Burbank, Calif.

"It's a great organization," Amlen concludes. "I think it's more important than it's ever been—with the issues that are at stake in the business world and, on a technical level, all the different standards—to have an organization like this where people can freely talk about these things. Getting the word out so that people see the value of it is our biggest challenge right now. I'm looking forward to it."