DALY CITY, Calif. — As the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival kicks off in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park this weekend, much of the live music will be produced and delivered through digital audio solutions from Bay Area audio technology pioneer Digidesign, a part of Avid Technology, Inc. In fact, most of the festival’s performers produced their music in the studio using Digidesign Pro Tools systems, and all three headliners including Radiohead, Tom Petty and Jack Johnson, as well as featured performers Beck and Steve Winwood among others, will all deploy Digidesign’s VENUE live sound systems for their performances at the event.
For more than two decades, Pro Tools has been the force behind digital music recording, allowing studios to replace tape-based recording systems with a digital alternative that merges near mixing and editing potential with high-resolution audio. Many of the performers gracing the stages at the Outside Lands festival this weekend, from eclectic local favorites to chart-topping household names, rely on Pro Tools every day to write, record and produce their music either at home, or in professional recording studios.
But it’s not just in the studio where Digidesign is driving the music industry forward; this weekend, many Outside Lands attendees will hear how Digidesign is revolutionizing the live sound listening experience as well. All three Outside Lands headliners and many featured performers are using Digidesign live sound systems to mix the sound during their performances. By combining the power of native plug-in processing (which replaces racks of outboard analog gear) and digital audio quality, with the multi-track recording capabilities of Pro Tools, Digidesign VENUE systems allow artists and live sound engineers to bring many of the same tools that revolutionized the studio to live music.
“VENUE has had a tremendous impact on the way we work,” says Brian Hendry, monitor engineer for classic rockers Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “It’s streamlined my workflow, greatly reduced our setup time, and dramatically lessened the amount of equipment we carry. More to the point, it’s improved our sound quality.”
Robert Scovill, Digidesign’s market manager for live sound products and an award-winning live sound engineer who has worked with such bands as Matchbox Twenty, Rush, Prince and Def Leppard — attributes the VENUE system’s quick acceptance to a changing music industry and evolving customer expectations.
“With the dramatic improvements in the quality of recorded music over the past 20 years, fans have become far more sophisticated, and their listening expectations are considerably higher,” Scovill says. “In addition, Internet-based technologies such as iTunes have created a level of consumer immediacy and a desire, on behalf of artists and management, to capture high-quality live recordings for fast delivery to their eager fans. The VENUE system’s ability to combine live sound mixing with industry-standard recording and production tools such as Pro Tools recording software is enabling engineers and musicians to meet the increasingly sophisticated demands of their listeners.”
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For more information, please visit www.digidesign.com
