AudioMedia - November 2008 - (Page 56)

NEW EXPOSÉ E8B AND VXT SERIES FROM KRK Purity. Freedom from adulteration or contamination. That’s what you need in the recording studio. Pure and simple uncoloured audio. KRK engineers understand this, and take great care to offer speakers that can be relied upon to deliver. The Exposé E8B and VXT series take studio monitoring to a whole new level. With an attention to detail and design expertise unmatched in the industry today KRK has truly raised the bar. Key design elements such as a sleek radiused edge enclosure with optimised airﬂow and minimal port turbulence, and ﬁnely tuned custom components, all ensure that the new Exposeé E8B and VXT series deliver a pure and realistic sound that is in a class of its own. SO PURE EP Productions PAUL MAC visits one of the few high-end commercial music facilities to be built in recent times. Portugal is nice at any time of the year. E P Productions is an unusual facility in many ways. It's unusual because it's a new build; it's unusual because 'no expense spared' does seem to cover it; and it's unusual because it's not really a recording studio at all – not in the traditional commercial facility sense, anyway. To understand the place and the business model, you've got to understand the people. Be warned to the sceptic this might sound like a money pit, or even a scam wrapped up in high ideals. However, to anyone who spends a little time in the company of Edgar Pinto (hence 'EP') and the others who made this place, it becomes obvious that it's only the simple ideals of doing things properly, and trying to find a way for a studio make it's way in a world of dwindling music revenues, that motivate it. Pinto is a well-travelled producer and musician. He spends a lot of time in China, has been working recently in Ukraine, lives in Madrid, Spain, and owns EP Productions in Lisbon, Portugal. His interest is in the global music markets and the developing economies, though this isn't exclusive. In all he reckons about percent of everything that goes through EP Productions is international. According to Pinto, the idea for the business has been buzzing around in his head for several years. The problem, as he sees it, for aspiring artists is the fragmented nature of the music business. Studios, production, marketing, materials, distribution, promotions, the international markets, and so on tend to be separate pieces that a band or artist has to negotiate in order to find success. It's an arduous road. EP Productions provides all of those things at both consultancy and practical levels. It has the contacts, the staff, and the know-how to make it happen. Business And Pleasure There's a core point here though that is crucial to the operation. The money for this service comes from the artist. Pinto explained that typically EP Productions will agree a project duration – maybe two, three, or five years. The target is a lucrative career for the artist. EP Productions is the fixer. If the project is beyond the means of the artists, EP productions even has special arrangements set up with a Spanish bank and finance deals tailored to the service: "It's like buying a car, but instead of buying a car you're going to try and promote your musical career." "We cannot promise the sky," says Pinto. "Just good work, with the best that we know We cannot percent guarantee to be successful, because nobody can; but with work I believe that we can get something." It's very easy to be sceptical about this, but you could equally assume that the core business here is both an attempt to give the artists means to and end while at the same time give a production company and a great recording studio the means to exist. The evidence for this? Being in the main studio was enough for me. There are many rooms in the large EP Productions building, from small production rooms, the creative/design department (branding, marketing, web, sleeve design ), the presentation areas (record company promotions, live promotions, and so on), and more. However, by far the most impressive space is the main studio – a large control room looking out through a traditional large studio window into a large main recording space. Off of that recording space are the booths, including a fullon reverberant stone drum room – something that nowadays qualifies as opulent. The studio was designed by Marcelo The Studio > 56 WWW.KRKSYS.COM AUDIO MEDIA NOVEMBER 2008 http://WWW.KRKSYS.COM http://WWW.KRKSYS.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AudioMedia - November 2008

AudioMedia - November 2008 Contents Recording News Post News Broadcast News Geofocus: Italy What's Up UK AES Review For the Record Studio Snapshot: Aquarium Abbey Road Plug-ins Brilliance Pack Neumann TLM67 Mercenary Audio KM-69 IZ Technology ADA Final Cut Special: Bond TC Powercore 6000 EP Productions Nagra VI Product Sampler: Location Tools Video Guide AMSR News Shure KSM9 Big Beach Boutique 4

AudioMedia - November 2008

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