Society Of Professional Audio Recording Services
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Society Of Professional Audio Recording Services
The Society of Professional Audio Recording Services (SPARS) is an organization that holds conferences and publishes papers about the professional audio community. Its members include many of the top audio engineers working in the industry today. SPARS was founded in 1979 as the Society of Professional Audio Recording Studios by the heads of eleven leading U.S. recording facilities. Among the co-founders were Mack Emerman of Criteria Studios, Chris Stone of Record Plant Studios, Joe Tarsia of Sigma Sound Studios, Howard Schwartz and Bob Liftin of Regent Sound, and Murray Allen of Universal Recording Corporation. SPARS developed the SPARS Code, which was common on the back of CD covers from the late eighties to the mid nineties. It specified whether analogue or digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, wh ...
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Audio Engineer
An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts." Sound engineering is increasingly seen as a creative profession where musical instruments and technology are used to produce sound for film, radio, television, music and video games. Audio engineers also set up, sound check and do live sound mixing using a mixing console and a sound reinforcement system for music concerts, theatre, sports games and corporate events. Alternatively, ''audio engineer'' can refer to a scientist or professional engineer who holds an engineering degree and who designs, dev ...
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Criteria Studios
Criteria Studios is a recording studio in North Miami, Florida, founded in 1958 by musician Mack Emerman. Hundreds of gold, platinum, and diamond singles and albums have been recorded, mixed or mastered at Criteria, for many notable artists and producers. Facilities Criteria has seven studios, each with its own letter designation. Studio A is Criteria's largest live room, designed to be large enough to record a symphony orchestra, with a ceiling outline of 3,000 square feet and a Solid State Logic 9096 J console, multitrack tape decks, and a Pro Tools HD3 system. Studio B is a Pro Tools suite with a Solid State Logic AWS900. Studio C has a 20 x 30 foot live room with 19 foot high ceilings, and the 40-input vintage Neve 8078, Neve 8078 mixing console formerly in Criteria's Studio A. Studio D has an SSL ORIGIN, the John Storyk-designed Studio E with its 27-foot peaked ceilings also houses an SSL9096J. Studio F is a digital production suite, featuring an SSL Duality console. Lastly, ...
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Chris Stone (entrepreneur)
Chris Stone (1935 – September 10, 2016) was an American music industry businessman and writer, and the co-founder with Gary Kellgren of the Record Plant recording studios. Stone's article first appeared in ''EQ'' magazine in November 1996. Stone founded Filmsonix in 1987, sold the Record Plant in 1989, and was the founder and CEO of World Studio Group. He co-founded the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services (SPARS), and he co-founded the Music Producers Guild of the Americas (MPGA), serving as executive director. The MPGA developed into the Producers & Engineers Wing of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). Stone earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and he lectured online for the Berklee College of Music as well as in person for the USC Thornton School of Music where he was an associate professor. He contributed regularly as a recording industry journalist, his work published by ''Pro Sound News'', ''Mix'' and ''Sound on Sou ...
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Record Plant Studios
The Record Plant is a recording studio established in New York City in 1968 and currently operating in Los Angeles, California. Known for innovations in the recording artists' workspace, it has produced highly influential albums, including Blondie's ''Parallel Lines'', Metallica's '' Load'' and '' Reload'', the Eagles' ''Hotel California'', Fleetwood Mac's '' Rumours'', Eminem's ''The Marshall Mathers LP'', Guns N' Roses' ''Appetite for Destruction,'' and Kanye West's ''The College Dropout''. More recent albums with songs recorded at Record Plant include Lady Gaga's '' ARTPOP'', D'Angelo's '' Black Messiah'', Justin Bieber's ''Purpose'', Beyoncé's ''Lemonade'', and Ariana Grande's '' Thank U, Next''. The studio was founded in 1968 in New York City by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, who opened a Los Angeles branch the following year and a Sausalito, California, location in 1972. During the 1980s, they sold the New York and Sausalito studios; the former closed in 1987, the latte ...
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Sigma Sound Studios
Sigma Sound Studios was a recording studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.. It was founded in 1968 by recording engineer Joseph Tarsia. Located at 212 North 12th Street in Philadelphia, it was one of the first studios in the United States to offer 24-track recording capacity and the first anywhere to successfully employ console automation. Tarsia, formerly chief engineer at Philadelphia's Cameo-Parkway Studios, also opened Sigma Sound Studios of New York City in 1977, at the Ed Sullivan Theater building. History Recording From the beginning, Sigma Sound was strongly associated with Philadelphia soul and, in the 1970s, the sound of Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International Records (its driving rhythm a precursor to disco music), as well as the classic, sophisticated productions of Thom Bell. Both featured large productions with strings and horns creating what became known as "The Sound of Philadelphia," or "T.S.O.P.", a term which became trademarked and was the title of ...
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Universal Recording Corporation
Universal Recording Corporation was a recording studio in Chicago founded by Bill Putnam, Sr. for the purpose of investigating new recording techniques and the development of specialized recording equipment. Universal Recording was seminal in the development of experimental studio techniques. It was the location of the first use of tape repeat in a recording, the first isolated vocal booth, the first recording with multiple overdubs of a single voice, early 8-track recording trials and the first experiments with half speed disc mastering. History Early history Putnam established Universal Recording Corp. north of Downtown Chicago in Evanston, Illinois in 1946. His partners were Bernie Clapper (a former Valparaiso Technical Institute roommate) and Bob Weber (who Putnam had met while working with the U.S. Army. The initial investment, most of which Putnam had borrowed from his family, was $20,000. The Evanston facility consisted of one small studio with a Western Electric ...
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SPARS Code
The SPARS code is a three-position alphabetic classification system developed in the early 1980s by the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services (SPARS) for commercial compact disc releases to denote aspects of the sound recording and reproduction process, distinguishing between the use of analog equipment and digital equipment. The code's three positions refer to recording, mixing, and mastering respectively. The first two positions may be coded either "A" for analog or "D" for digital; the third position (mastering) is always "D" on digital CDs. The scheme was not originally intended to be limited to use on digital packaged media: it was also available for use in conjunction with analog releases such as vinyl or cassette (where the final character of course would always be "A"), but this was seldom done in practice. The system was first implemented in 1984. Due to increasing complexity of recording and mixing processes developed over the code's first decade of use, SPA ...
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Analog Recording
Analog recording is a technique used for the recording of analog signals which, among many possibilities, allows analog audio for later playback. Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the phonautograph and phonograph. Later, electronic techniques such as wire and tape recording were developed. Analog recording methods store analog signals directly in or on the media. The signal may be stored as a physical texture on a phonograph record, or a fluctuation in the field strength of a magnetic recording. Analog transmission methods use analog signals to distribute audio content. These are in contrast to digital audio where an analog signal is sampled and quantized to produce a digital signal which is represented, stored and transmitted as discrete numbers. See also * Comparison of analog and digital recording * History of sound recording * Timeline of audio formats An audio format is a medium for sound recording and reproduction. The term is applied to ...
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Digital Audio
Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samples are taken 44,100 times per second, each with 16-bit sample depth. Digital audio is also the name for the entire technology of sound recording and reproduction using audio signals that have been encoded in digital form. Following significant advances in digital audio technology during the 1970s and 1980s, it gradually replaced analog audio technology in many areas of audio engineering, record production and telecommunications in the 1990s and 2000s In a digital audio system, an analog electrical signal representing the sound is converted with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) into a digital signal, typically using pulse-code modulation (PCM). This digital signal can then be recorded, edited, modified, and copied using computer ...
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Audio Engineering
Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound * Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of sound in a form processed and/or stored by computers or digital electronics *Audio, audible content (media) in audio production and publishing *Semantic audio, extraction of symbols or meaning from audio * Stereophonic audio, method of sound reproduction that creates an illusion of multi-directional audible perspective * Audio equipment Entertainment *AUDIO (group), an American R&B band of 5 brothers formerly known as TNT Boyz and as B5 * ''Audio'' (album), an album by the Blue Man Group * ''Audio'' (magazine), a magazine published from 1947 to 2000 *Audio (musician), British drum and bass artist * "Audio" (song), a song by LSD Computing *, an HTML element, see HTML5 audio See also *Acoustic (other) *Audible (other) *A ...
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Film And Video Technology
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it. Recording and transmission of film The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects. Before the introduction of digital production, series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitize ...
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