We had the pleasure of demonstrating to attendees how ADX Technology creates new ways of generating revenue for our clients. NAB 2012 is all about discovering the untapped possibilities of digital media and, in line with that philosophy, ADX technology helps media companies uncover new opportunities for their content. If you attended NAB 2012 and did not have the chance to meet with us, please feel free to contact us at sales@audionamix.com for more information on how we can take your business to the next level.

The keynote speaker, Ben Swimburn, managing partner at Morgan Stanley, hosted a presentation entitled “Hollywood Reaches for the Clouds,” which outlined the current state of the digital entertainment industry as well as the discussing the unique opportunities created by cloud streaming services.

As cloud computing expands its applications across industries and services, we continue to uncover how this seemingly-limitless platform holds untold prospects for the entertainment industry. Audionamix and other media companies are looking for ways to maximize this distribution channel to provide better quality and service for companies and consumers alike.

As Technicolor Senior Vice President, North American and Worldwide Sales, Adam served on the team negotiating long-term agreements with major studios, including Warner Bros., Universal Studios, Focus Films, The Weinstein Company, Overture Films, and IMAX Corporation. He managed a sales and marketing staff of 28, including 18 internationally. Additionally, he was responsible for North America and worldwide customer relations, coordinating customers’ needs in creating elements for international distribution with laboratories in London, Rome, Madrid, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and Bangkok.

Adam’s international expertise includes creating a presence at film festivals and film markets such as Cannes, Sundance, ShowWest, Mifed, Show Canada and American Film Market. Through his efforts, Adam grew Technicolor’s international release business by over 50% by negotiating new sales agreements with international sales companies, among them, New Line International and Summit International.

We are happy to extend an enthusiastic welcome to our new colleague, knowing that his expertise and track record mean a deeper and more diverse penetration of ADX technology into new markets and high-quality service to our clients.

The company had selected Brenda Lee’s famous song Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree for a national television commercial campaign. As you might imagine, the selection of music for an advertisement is a thoughtful, calculated, and important process. Bottom line: they needed that exact song. Problem: the vocals were clashing with the voice-over and no instrumental version of the song existed.

Again, modern musical applications are foiled by the shortcomings of past technology. Until recently, vocals and instrumental tracks have been inextricable from each other. If you want that voice alone, or that music alone, you are out of luck. Until ADX!
Using our Instrumental Creation service, Audionamix provided an instrumental version of the Brenda Lee recording within 24 hours. The commercial was finalized and approved for the holiday campaign and launched in time.

It is truly rewarding to be able to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem, but it is an added bonus when you can deliver in record time. For Audionamix, developing creative solutions for pressing problems is all in a day’s work.

A respected Audio Engineer of over 20 years experience, instructor for the Audio Engineering Program at Musicians Institute and a published author of various technical reference books for DAWs, Rick has been leading ADX Production since 2010. His constant attention to detail and quality control is what enabled Audionamix technology to grow from great to outstanding. Along with his personally selected team of talented, young engineers, Rick helps bridge the gap between the ADX research team and the clients’ expectations.

Gerald Yates: Rick, how long have you been an audio engineer?

Rick Silva: I would have to say my interest in recording and mixing music started about 25 years ago when I bought my first 4 track recorder. It was a Tascam PortaTwo 4 track cassette recorder. I remember being so excited when I ordered it and after I finally I learned how to use it, I became addicted to audio engineering and I’ve been chasing tone and technology ever since. I recorded countless tracks with that 4-track recorder before moving up to an 8-track cassette recorder. From there I got heavily into MIDI sequencing drums and synths and sync’ing them up with Alesis ADAT recorders and then ultimately moving on to Digital Audio Workstations. I finally got serious and went to school for audio engineering 15 years ago. Now, I’ve been working as professional audio engineer in Hollywood for 12 years, but I’ve been passionate about playing and recording music and working in recording studios for just over 25 years now.

GY: How would you describe your role as VP of Production?

RS: Well, I would say I lead a team of very talented, young audio engineers and help them refine the results ADX technology allows us to achieve. I also gather information for the software refinements we need for our technology to improve and relay that information to our Research Lab in Paris. The Audionamix research team provides weekly updates to our various software solutions that help the production team achieve the level of results expected by our clients.

I also interface with all of our clients from a technical perspective. I need to make sure their expectations are understood so that we can deliver the professional standard of quality they require to fully welcome and embrace a cutting edge technology company like Audionamix into their work flow. Often times the bar is set very high for us because we offer services that most audio engineers in the professional community have always known to be impossible, therefore most of our clients are very skeptical in the beginning and ask us for test after test. If we jump one hurdle without a problem they say “but how about this, can you do this?” Most of the time we meet their expectations and they are happy to move forward with the results we provide, but they love to try to find our limitations.  I don’t mind, because we are always up for a challenge at Audionamix, and I’m happy to say we do really good job of rising to the occasion again and again.

GY: Can you tell me a little bit about your experience in the world of sound.

RS: My experience in sound? Hmmm. I would have to say that I’ve been seriously interested since I was 17 or 18 years old. Back then, I was primarily a guitar player giving lessons at the local music stores and writing songs. But when I started recording demos with my band members, I remember always trying to make things “sound better.” I would read articles in magazines and wonder, what do they mean by “add 5k for presence,” or “we added heavy compression to the guitars.” I knew what treble and bass was, but not 20Hz-20kHz and lows, low mids, high mids and highs, or the difference between dynamic signal processing and time-based effects.  Ultimately, I finally got really serious about “chasing tone,” I went to school to study Audio Engineering.

Once I graduated, I hustled small gigs around Hollywood as an all around “Pro Tools guy”, whether it was recording, editing, mixing or mastering, I was all over it and I loved it. Having a strong background as a musician really expedited my progress as a professional audio engineer because I was able to help my clients musically and sonically. When they realized I was able to communicate with them in a musical language and I knew the audio engineering lingo, I gained a different level of respect from them. This was pretty important because to them, I wasn’t just that “knob turner and computer geek guy,” I could actually contribute to the musical process too.

About a year after graduating and answering any call that came in to cover an engineering gig, I was given the opportunity to teach audio engineering at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. After about a year and a half of teaching at the school, I was helping develop several audio engineering classes for the program with the newly appointed department head.

Over the years, I’ve recorded, edited, mixed and mastered several professional artists. I been asked to write books Pro Tools and Logic books for the Hal Leonard corporation, and write a mixing and mastering book and host a DAW video for Alfred Publishing. Also, my studio studio became the first Accredited Waves Certification Training facility in the Los Angeles area. Now with Audionamix I’m working with the biggest names in the Music, Television and Motion Picture industry.

GY: A man of your credentials could have chosen to work anywhere in the world, why did you want to work with Audionamix?

RS: When I was approached by Audionamix to become their head of production, I was definitely flattered. However, I was also very busy and very skeptical. Mainly, I didn’t believe what they were telling me they could do, so I asked for a demo and a chance to see this technology in action. After hearing the demo and seeing the software being used, I was very intrigued and I asked as many questions as I could. One of my former audio engineering students ,Zach Taylor, was responsible for bringing me to the attention of ADX so once I was able to speak to him alone and say ok “whats REALLY going on here?” He explained that he had been working with the technology for about 4 months and it was really cool, but challenging to use and not quite fully developed yet . Most importantly, he said he really believed in the technology, believed in me, and believed in the opportunity that ADX had to offer in general. Since I had a lot of faith in him, I really started taking the offer seriously.

At the time I was just finishing my books and video for Hal Leonard and Alfred Publishing, teaching full time at Musicians Institute and lending technical assistance and project management to Dweezil Zappa while he camped out in my studio mixing his “Return Of The Sun Of…” double-live CD. Needless to say, my plate was full and I wasn’t really for looking for new challenges but this was more than just a challenge. It was an opportunity to help harness a technology that was not yet fully developed or defined. So with that in mind, and being a tech geek at heart, naturally I had to know as much as I could about this ADX technoogy. I mean, what audio engineer doesn’t want to be part of something that has never been done in the field of audio engineering? The thought of being able to reverse engineer fully mixed and mastered music into usable components for creating new pieces of art was too alluring for me to resist.

So, after 4 or 5 interviews with the VP of Operations, SVP of Sales,  CEO (Olivier Attia) and then finally the main VC Investor at the time, I realized the opportunity was very real and that Audionamix was prepared to give me full support in helping develop their technology. Olivier agreed to let me “hand pick” my team of audio engineers and allow me work and manage that team from my own studio. He also insured me that I would have the flexibility in my schedule that I needed to maintain my career as an instructor and independent audio engineer. He also embraced the concept that creative people thrive in a relaxed work environment and he would provide me all the tools I needed in order to succeed. These were all very important factors in my decision to accept his offer.  He also insisted that once I accept the position, I would be heading to Europe to meet the Research Team in Paris and I would be given full access to everything they have been working on for the past five years as a research lab in order to begin accessing the possibilities of ADX technology. Once I realized Olivier’s dedication to this company and his determination for this company to succeed; we worked out the final details of my contract, I accepted his offer to become the VP of Production for Audionamix, and I’ve been happily sleeping only 5 hours a day ever since.

GY: What’s the most exciting aspect of your position?

RS:The most exciting aspect of my position at Audionamix is having the opportunity of being part of something that has never been done in the field audio engineering. I always say ” Not only do I get to be a kid in a candy store, but I get to request the ingredients for what kind of candy is being made.” Also, when one has the opportunity to work with the some of the best audio engineers from around the world, at the biggest studios in the Music, TV and Film industry; it doesn’t get much more exciting than that.

GY: Currently Audionamix is used in the entertainment industry, what other areas can you foresee using ADX Technology

RS: I see amazing things for Audionamix technology in the relatively near future. We will certainly continue to grow as a “like no other” service provider for the entertainment industry, but I can easily see us being very competitive in the software plug in industry for audio engineers and audio enthusiasts alike. I also believe we will do well with educational training for ADX software as applied to post production and music applications, maybe even the “Killer Ap” market for consumers and quite possibly the medical and forensic fields of science.

In my humble opinion, the sky is the limit for ADX technology.  We’ve come a long way since bringing operations and production to LA in 2009. With our incredible CEO that has long range vision and an open mind, a brilliant research team that prides itself on constant improvement, a management team that has the drive and desire to succeed, and an extremely talented and creative production team like this company has; I truly believe there is nothing stopping us from reaching every goal we set out to achieve.

Photo Credit: © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved

In the winter of 1951, Mel Blanc recorded I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, a song written for the famous Looney Tunes icons Sylvester and Tweety. The recording was released as a single and quickly shot up the Billboard charts to No. 9, selling over 2 million copies. Daffy’s Rhapsody was recorded in the early 1950′s as well, but for a children’s album. Yet despite their success, neither of these songs was ever seen on the silver screen. Sixty years later, when Warner Bros. Animation decided the time had come to animate these classic titles in 3-D, they found out it was not as simple as it sounded.

A first challenge arose when trying to locate the original Mel Blanc recordings.

According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, the film’s executive producer and executive vice president of creative affairs for Warner Bros. Animation, Sam Register, said that an animator told him about the Blanc recording approximately three years ago. “The idea of being able to go back and use Mel Blanc, all of that sounded fantastic,” * Register said. He took the project to director Matthew O’Callaghan, who was working on the Coyote and Road Runner shorts and that is when the obstacle of locating the master presented itself. In fact, it took two years of searching before they were found at Capitol Records.

Once found, however, another challenge arose: “We discovered that the tracks only existed in mono,” O’Callaghan said. “We had to find a company that specialized in separating the tracks so you could have control over the volume and everything.” *

Photo Credit: © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved

Having seen some of our previous work, Warner Bros. Animation entrusted Audionamix to do what we do best: reverse engineer the locked audio and “Undo to Create.” Using our proprietary Voice Isolation technology, our team of audio engineers separated Blanc’s voice from both original recordings and provided Warner Bros. Animation clean and enhanced versions of the actor’s voice with all of the original orchestration removed. The process allowed the production team at Warner Bros. Animation to record a new orchestration, in line with today’s exacting audio standards and bring the director’s creative vision to life.

I Tawt I Taw Puddy Tat was released as a brand new 3-D animated short on November 18 of last year, as the opening act to Happy Feet Two.
Daffy’s Rhapsody premiered on February 10th in tandem with the release of the Journey 2:The Mysterious Island.

* Quotes from The Los Angeles Times Article: “I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat”, November 17th 2011 Sylvester and Tweety

In speaking about the presentation Andre Macaluso, Senior VP of Media Management for Deluxe said:
“The technical team at Audionamix put on a superb presentation. We were fortunate to assemble a healthy cross section of some 30 clients in the Manhattan post community. The demos were held in Theater 1 in Deluxe’s Hudson Street facility. The superior audio quality of the theater really enhanced the effectiveness of the demos for the audience. The demos covered the five key technology solutions that Audionamix has perfected and generated good feedback both immediately after the presentation as well as in the days following. Deluxe and Audionamix jointly agreed that the session was well worth the effort. Both are very excited to learn that several clients are now searching their archives for suitable content that would be well-served by the unique audio solutions that are now available through Deluxe.”

Audionamix would not be the leader in source separation if it were not for the technology developed by our research team in Paris. Many of our technological breakthroughs in source separation start out as research projects. Audionamix participates in several conferences throughout the year to share our knowledge and expertise and give back to the scientific community.

Members of the Audionamix research team will attend the 11th annual International Conference on Latent Variable Analysis and Signal Processing (LVA/ICA) in Tel-Aviv, Israel (http://events.ortra.com/lva/). LVA/ICA is the only conference dedicated to the models of mixtures of latent variables, a topic encompassing modern audio source separation techniques in which Audionamix is involved. Audionamix will present a paper there (Bayesian non-negative matrix factorization with learned temporal smoothness prior), and will also chair a special session on speech and audio processing.