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Sound Industry Honours Finest at 2007 TEC Awards

Winners in 25 categories of Technical and Creative Achievement including a new category – Creative Achievement in Sound Production for Interactive Entertainment – were presented with Technical Excellence & CreativityAwards on Saturday, October 6, at the New York Marriott Marquis, on the second night of the 123rd Audio Engineering Society Convention. Hosted by Late Night with David Letterman’s Will Lee, the show brought together almost 700 of the pro sound industry’s elite, as well as numerous renowned musical artists. The TEC Awards, sponsored by Mix magazine, is the world’s most prominent forum honoring outstanding achievement in professional audio production and product design.

Legendary guitarist and inventor Les Paul, who will be 93 next year co-presented his eponymous Les Paul award with actor Peter Riegert to musician, producer and composer Al Kooper. Sponsored by Gibson Guitar Corporation, past winners include Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen and Brian Wilson, among others. Acclaimed broadcast mixer Ed Greene (Oscars, Grammys, Kennedy Center, Olympics) was officially inducted into the TEC Awards Hall of Fame (sponsored by Dolby Laboratories), by last year’s inductee, Remote Recording’s David Hewitt.

Highlights of the evening included the producers and engineers of John Mayer’s Continuum tour and album, as well as the single ‘Waiting for the World to Change’, trooping to the stage three times; a TEC Award for Outstanding Television Sound for The Sopranos; and the award for Studio Design Project to Los Angeles’s famed Record Plant Studios. Musical performances that brought the crowd to its feet included a surprise appearance by Gary Lewis (Garry Lewis and the Playboys), who opened the show with his hit ‘This Diamond Ring’, written by Al Kooper. He was followed later by an electrifying rendition of “Season of the Witch,” with Kooper himself on vocals and Hammond B-3, backed by fellow Late Show veterans Jimmy Vivino on guitar, Anton Figg on drums and Will Lee on bass.

“The evening was a resounding success,” said Hillel Resner, president of the Mix Foundation executive producer of the TEC Awards. “We are proud to recognize the work of the audio professionals behind so much of today’s entertainment, and grateful that so many leading musicians and audio professionals helped present the awards. This is an event that brings our industry together to honor its own for a good cause.”

Presenters included platinum producer/engineers Phil Ramone, Jimmy Douglas, George Massenburg, and Tony Maserati, guitarists Vernon Reid and Felicia Collins (Letterman) and many other celebrities of sound production.

In addition to the awards and special honors, 15 historic audio products and innovations were inducted to the TECnology Hall of Fame, established in 2004 by the Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio to honor significant, lasting contributions to the advancement of audio technology. The induction ceremony took place on Friday evening, October 5 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York.

The 2007 winners in Technical Achievement are:

ANCILLARY EQUIPMENT: Apogee Electronics Symphony

DIGITAL CONVERTER TECHNOLOGY: Apogee Electronics Ensemble

MIC PREAMPLIFIER TECHNOLOGY: SSL XLogic Alpha Channel

MIC TECHNOLOGY/SOUND REINFORCEMENT: Neumann KMS 104

MIC TECHNOLOGY//RECORDING: Royer R122-V

WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY: Sennheiser NET1

SOUND REINFORCEMENT LOUDSPEAKER TECHNOLOGY: JBL Professional VP Series

STUDIO MONITOR TECHNOLOGY: Genelec 8200/7200 DSP Series

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT TECHNOLOGY: Moog Little Phatty

SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY/HARDWARE: Focusrite Liquid Mix

SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY/SOFTWARE: Universal Audio Neve Classic Console Bundle

WORKSTATION TECHNOLOGY: Digidesign 003

RECORDING DEVICES: Tascam DV-RA1000HD

SOUND REINFORCEMENT CONSOLE TECHNOLOGY: Digidesign D-Show Profile

SMALL FORMAT CONSOLE TECHNOLOGY: Trident Series 8T-8

LARGE FORMAT CONSOLE TECHNOLOGY: SSL Duality

The 2007 winners in Outstanding Creative Technology are:

TOUR SOUND PRODUCTION: John Mayer Continuum Tour

REMOTE PRODUCTION/RECORDING OR BROADCAST: 49th Annual Grammy Awards, CBS

TELEVISION SOUND PRODUCTION: The Sopranos, HBO

FILM SOUND PRODUCTION: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Jerry Bruckheimer, Walt Disney

STUDIO DESIGN PROJECT: Record Plant/SSL 1, Hollywood, CA

INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT SOUND PRODUCTION: Tomb Raider: Legend, Eidos Interactive

SURROUND SOUND PRODUCTION: Love, Beatles (DVD-A)

RECORD PRODUCTION/SINGLE OR TRACK: ‘Waiting On The World to Change’, Continuum, John Mayer

RECORD PRODUCTION/ALBUM: Continuum, John Mayer

The TEC Awards nominees are selected by a panel of more than 100 audio industry professionals.

Top sponsors of the TEC Awards, besides Mix, Dolby and Gibson Guitar, include Intel Corporation, Harman Pro Group, Shure, American Music and Sound, Rode/Event Electronics, and 30 other leading audio and technology companies. Monies raised by the TEC Awards support programs that educate audio professionals and the general public about the prevention of noise-induced hearing loss in the music environment, and also endow scholarship funds for students of the audio arts and sciences at major colleges and universities.

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Sound Industry Honours Finest at 2007 TEC Awards

9th October 2007

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