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Photo (CC-BY) Liz Bustamante.
Ed.: Make no mistake about it: digital sound tech, from mixing to processing, has evolved to a fidelity on par with its analog predecessors and opening possibilities well beyond what they offered. But the making of that evolution wasn’t easy, and it was more than a technical challenge. You can thank the creative spirit of people like Paul Frindle. As contributor Primus Luta explains to CDM, his work is about more than just engineering or tools – it’s driven by creative, musical energy. -PK
Author’s note: I wanted to bring this piece to the CDM audience because, whether we know it or not, if we Create Digital Music, we are indebted to people like Paul Frindle. While this piece is on the technical side, one of the things that I hope readers will pull away is his creative spirit. May Paul inspire you to bring that same energy to the work that you produce in the digital realm. You can read the full interview, with war stories from Virgin Records, Trident Studios, SSL and more at AvantUrb.
In the world of audio, Paul Frindle is a legend. During his tenure at Solid State Logic, he was responsible for the channel electronics of the SSL G Series Console. He was also a part of the team that broke the “damnable black art” of digital conversion. He went on to cofound the (pre-dot=com) startup Oxford Digital Ltd. Their first contract was with Sony (who would eventually take over the company), developing the application design of Sony’s flagship digital mixing console. The result of this work was the OXF-R3, to this day regarded as the pinnacle of digital mixing consoles, not only in music, but also in film. Like everything Paul has worked on, as much of a landmark as the OXF-R3 was, it proved to be but merely a stepping stone. Where it was leading, however, could have been much different. [read]
“Inspiration does not come like a bolt. Nor is it kinetic, energetic striving. It comes into us slowly and quietly all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.” – Brenda Ueland
Drawing on the success of their category creating Reflexion Filter stand mount microphone acoustic isolation system, sE Electronics has released the Project Studio Reflexion Filter.
The ADK Custom Shop Fab-Four Class A FET Microphone Collection features four killer mics based on the classic sounds of yesteryear. ADK Custom Shop utilizes modern, solid-state electronics to effectively reproduce the sonic character of classic Austrian, Danish, and German tube microphones. I reviewed the Hamburg II-Au (now called the Hamburg 67Au) and the Vienna II-Au (now called the Vienna 12Au) back in 2007 and I subsequently bought them both. Naturally, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend some serious time with the remaining two mics in the collection, the Berlin-47Au and the Cremona-251Au.
The unlikely setting of a small workshop beside the Bay Horse Pub in Glasgow’s Pollokshaw’s Road serves as the home of one of the UK guitar industry’s best-kept secrets.
