Dangerous Music Users :

Mastering Engineer David Kutch Gets Dangerous in NYC
Grammy-Nominated Engineer Opens New Mastering Studio with Dangerous Music Equipment at its Center

Edmeston, NY — March 27, 2008 — Grammy-Nominated mastering engineer David Kutch has opened The Mastering Palace, a new mastering studio in New York City. In only a few short months of opening, Kutch has already mastered a range of top artist releases from The Roots, Natasha Bedingfield, Erykah Badu, Estelle, to classic Al Green. At the core of his new studio setup are two key pieces of analog equipment: the Dangerous Master and the Dangerous Monitor.  These Dangerous Music components allow Kutch to be assured of the quality of his analog signal path, where he spends most of his time bringing out the best in a piece of recorded music.

Over the past two decades, many mastering studios and engineers have become familiar with Dangerous Music through Chris Muth. Kutch explains his own connection, “The entire professional mastering community knows Chris Muth. I’m sorry -  ‘Relies’ on Chris Muth. If your 1630 [tape] machine needed alignment you called Chris Muth. If your Neumann cutting lathe was acting up, you called Chris Muth. If you had a technical need where the equipment to complete a task did not exist yet, the first thing anyone did was call Chris Muth. Chris tweaked, repaired or invented mastering equipment better than anyone else, period!  Dangerous Music and its products are far from being new players in the pro audio gear world. It has all been evolving in Chris’ brain and in mastering studios for over 20 years. He truly is a Mad Genius!”

Integrating Dangerous Music gear into his own studios has been an easy choice, according to Kutch, “While at Masterdisk [famed NY mastering studio] I had been using a Muth Audio Designs Mastering Console and Monitor box (the big black one). The gear never breaks down and is very transparent. When I moved to Sony Music Studios [former 54th Street headquarters] they built me a brand new mastering room. When they asked what type of Mastering console I wanted, the answer was a no-brainer: ‘Anything from Chris!’ — which by this point was the Dangerous Master because he was no longer making the ‘MAD’ console.”

In his new studio, The Mastering Palace, Kutch explains how he centers his outboard connections around Dangerous Music designs. “The Dangerous Master brings all of my analog processing gear together in one place. The stereo signal comes in, gets left and right adjustments if need be, then hits my 3 inserts. One of the things that most attracted me to the Dangerous Master is that there are only 3 inserts. More inserts equals more noise. In this scenario: LESS IS BETTER! At this stage I can insert any of my analog equalizers or compressors as needed. I can also insert an EQ or de-esser into the ‘S&M’ or Mid–Side circuit [of the Master] so I can process the mono and stereo program material independently, as well as increase or decrease the stereo width without messing with the phase. I’ve tried other devices that claim to do this but they do not even come close.”

“My Dangerous Monitor lets me have control over speaker volume as well as listening to my different analog and digital signal inputs. The best feature is the onboard D-to-A converter. It switches from one AES input to another without any pops, glitches or latency — again, a rare feature. This way I can compare pre- and post- processing with the same D-to-A conversion on both sources,” added Kutch.

Asked of his experiences dealing with artists in his studio while mastering with Dangerous Music equipment, Kutch concludes, “I’ve had Erykah Badu here as well as Questlove from the The Roots. Besides having my system sound as good as it can, the gear just does not break down when the client is present. Since the Dangerous Music equipment is what ties my all of my gear together it has to work ALL the time. If it went down, the session would be dead. I’ve been using equipment designed by Chris [Muth] for 11 years and I’ve never had a piece break. It just works!”

In addition to the Dangerous Master and the Dangerous Monitor, Kutch of course has a host of other mastering equipment. For playback, The Mastering Palace studio is based around a Studer A820 half-inch analog tape machine and a Digidesign Pro Tools HD system. As an editor, Kutch uses Magix’s Sequoia DAW. Along with a host of boutique analog compressors, other key ingredients are his Prism Sound stereo converters and Maselec EQ, and for digital processing the TC Electronic System 6000. Critical listening depends on Kutch’s Focal Solo 6 monitors, and Legacy Focus monitors.

David Kutch Credits
Kutch began his career in recording with some of New York’s finest producers, ranging from Phil Ramone to Puff Daddy. In 1997 Kutch helped build the legendary Powers House of Sound Mastering Studios with Herb Powers Jr. There he worked on albums for Biggie, Puff Daddy, Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, and Missy Elliot. In 2002, Kutch was nominated for a prestigious Grammy in the category of ‘Album of the Year’ for mastering Outkasts’ “Stankonia” LP that included the hits “Miss Jackson” and “So Fresh, So Clean.” Some of the tracks and albums Kutch mastered at his studio within the famed New York 54th Street Sony Mastering Studios, were for Kanye West, The Roots, Jamie Foxx, DMX, and Sarah McLaughlan. He has also completed DVD mastering for Rod Stewart, Angie Stone, Iron Maiden and Anthrax releases.  Right before opening The Mastering Palace, Kutch spent the summer of 2007 mastering Alicia Keys’ “As I Am” album at her studio on Long Island, as well as other artists’ projects.

Contact David Kutch and The Mastering Palace at 1-(212) 665-2200 or visit the website at: http://www.themasteringpalace.com

David Kahne Gets Dangerous on McCartney Album
Mixes Paul McCartney's "Memory Almost Full" with his Dangerous Music System

Edmeston, NY - July 12, 2007 - David Kahne's busy career as a top producer and engineer continues to peak with the Paul McCartney album "Memory Almost Full" on which he acted as producer, as well as recording and mixing much of the album. Adam Noble and Geoff Emerick also worked during the recording phases with Kahne on some of the material. Kahne also just completed Kelly Clarkson's "My December"- tracks on both projects were worked on using his Dangerous Music system, where he recently added a fourth Dangerous 2-Bus for 64-channels of analog summing. Kahne also utilizes a Dangerous Monitor and Dangerous MQ in his system for speaker control, input selection and metering.

Describing some of the most important aspects of his system Kahne says, "The Dangerous 2-Bus summing amp has a lot of headroom and is also extremely transparent.  I like that the 2-Bus doesn't have coloration, so I'm not thinking about the sound of it.  I can put an (Allan) Smart or Fairchild compressor across the stereo bus and tailor the sound how I want to. Also stereo imaging is really important, of course, and the Dangerous 2-Bus is always phase coherent and sounds great on every mix."

Kahne continued, "To me, my mixes sound better on the 2-Bus than just mixed in the box: that was what made me choose the Dangerous summing amps. Before I was using the Dangerous, when the audio came to the last summing stage in the computer it sounded crunchy, and crushed and phasey. With the Dangerous, the final product sounds like when I'm mixing on a great large format console."

Recently on McCartney's "Memory Almost Full" album project Kahne says that the recording, editing, overdubs and mixing happened in a variety of studios in New York and the UK. "Three songs were mixed at Soundtrack, NY by Andy Wallace. The others were mixed in my room on the Dangerous Music rig, after we'd finished all the parts and set up the mixes at Paul's studio in the UK at Hog Hill Mill. Most of the recording was done at the Mill, or Abbey Road. I worked on editing some of the songs in my room after we were done with all the recording, and finished most of the mixes at my place. Paul did some overdubs there, too. We were recording and mixing and arranging all at the same time, all through the album."

McCartney was closely involved in the mixing process and often added overdubs during the mix sessions. "Paul went through every mix with me, track by track. Even if he wasn't there when I was working on some of it, we always went through every note together before it was decided that the track was finished," said Kahne.

Adding the fourth Dangerous 2-Bus to his system allowed Kahne to fully utilize his 64-channel MADI card.  He has a lot of outboard EQ, compressors and mic preamps, and he now has his system hardwired so that he can instantly access all of his equipment directly through the 2-Busses. "With the MADI card and the Dangerous 2-Busses I have instant access to all my analog gear, and now everything in my studio is available at any moment," Kahne stated.

The evolution of Kahne's mix system came from working in his room at Hensen Recording in Hollywood. "I was using a Speck mixer for pre-production and overdubbing, then got a Yamaha digital console to use for mixing. I was looking at it one day and it struck me, 'why do I need two sets of digital faders and EQ's?' I'd heard about the Dangerous 2-Bus and realized that concept was the best solution for me if it sounded great. I dug more inside the computer after that, and took the most intensive processor task -summing- and gave it to the Dangerous 2-Bus and forgot about it." Now with 64-channels of Dangerous, Kahne concludes that, "Dangerous Music was the first to make boxes like these, and in my opinion they're still the best."

To finish his studio system and retain all the aspects of working with a large format console, Kahne uses the Dangerous Monitor and Dangerous MQ alongside his Dangerous 2-Bus setup. He's even had Dangerous Music designer Chris Muth modify the Monitor unit to allow 4 sets of speaker outputs.

Along with McCartney's "Memory Almost Full" Kahne has worked on previous McCartney outings "Driving Rain," "Back in the U.S.," "From a Lover to a Friend," "In Red Square," and "Freedom." As a top pop-music producer and engineer Kahne's work spans a huge list of artists including the brand-new Kelly Clarkson album "My December",  Imogen Heap, The Strokes, Sublime, Sean Lennon, Sugar Ray, Wilco, Tony Bennett, Fishbone, The Bangles, Shawn Colvin, Stevie Nicks, Matthew Sweet, K.D. Lang, 311, and many others

Studio Owner Gina Fant-Saez Is Dangerous
Engineer gets Large Format Console Sound with her Dangerous Music System

Edmeston, NY - April 20, 2007 - Since installing her Dangerous Music rig at Blue World Music Gina Fant-Saez doesn't miss her large format console.  Combined with Pro Tools and a nice selection of EQs, compressors and Mic pres, the Dangerous Music core summing and monitoring system gives her the sound she and her clients desire. The decision to make this drastic change in her studio equipment was initially based on her view of the changing way that music is being produced today, and when she did a listening test with other professional engineers and mixers, Fant-Saez was convinced Dangerous was the way to go.

Fant-Saez revealed, "I replaced my SSL with a Dangerous Music system after researching and testing other available summing systems. Before selling the SSL, I ran three mixes: one on the board (no EQ or compression), one in-the-box mix, and one through the Dangerous system. I invited a handful of Austin's best engineers and producers to listen, and in blind tests, we had a unanimous decision that the Dangerous mixes beat out everything. They were simply cleaner and warmer to everyone."

Almost two years later, Fant-Saez is still convinced.  "Ever since I bought my Dangerous Music system, I just don't miss the console."

Fant-Saez added, "I found that I was using the SSL for analog summing, and maybe some EQ. I had all the faders at unity gain, and I was using mostly plug-ins, and all the automation in Pro Tools. I basically replaced my large format analog console with a Dangerous Music system and some key outboard compressors, EQs, and mic pres."

Blue World Music sports a comprehensive rack containing a pair of Dangerous 2-Busses normaled to Digi 192's for 32-channels of analog summing as well as a Dangerous Mixer linked to the D2B's for external FX and reverb returns.  A Dangerous Monitor and MQ complete the system by providing input and speaker switching, cue and talkback functions as well as a reference D/A converter and metering.  Explaining how the console sound gets completed Fant-Saez said, "I put the Allen Smart stereo compressor on the end of the mix chain to replicate the sound of the SSL. The Allen Smart is the same compressor that the SSL console uses. Combined with my outboard gear and plug-ins it's like my large format console in a rack. We're very happy with the system."

Fant-Saez  spent time at Juilliard studying music theory and has a Master's Degree in Interactive Telecommunications, as well as being a recording engineer and composer.  Her secluded studio outside Austin, Blue World Music, has a relaxed atmosphere combined with a high tech audio environment. But these days her main project is eSession, a web-based music collaboration system that allows artists, producers, songwriters and producers from around the world to collaborate with anyone they know or hire of eSession's 600-plus world class musicians and engineers. The eSession website handles all financial transactions, files transfers and real-time collaboration.

Blue World Studio's clients include Sting, Shawn Colvin, Spoon, Jimmie Vaughan, Nelly Furtado, Walt Disney Pictures, and Chris Vrenna (Nine Inch Nails, Tweaker). Fant-Saez has also remixed U2's smash hit "Elevation", written "Pro Tools for Musicians & Songwriters"  (http://www.protoolsformusicians.com) and is in the process of writing and producing a techno-pop project called Room 2 Breathe, teaming up with German producer Sam Oliver.
To contact Gina Fant-Saez visit Blue World Music at http://www.blueworldmusic.com/ Or eSession at http://www.esession.com

Producer & Engineer Robert Carranza Is Dangerous
Grammy Winner Churns out Hits with his Dangerous Music System

Edmeston, NY - January 3, 2007 - Robert Carranza is a producer, and recording and mix engineer who swears by his Dangerous Music 2-BUS summing amp and other Dangerous Music gear and uses it constantly on a wide variety of top artists' projects. In 2001, Dangerous Music pioneered the concept of the dedicated analog summing buss for digital audio workstations with the introduction of the Dangerous 2-Bus.  Carranza has continued to invest in Dangerous Music gear adding the Dangerous Monitor, Dangerous MQ and Dangerous Master as his core equipment setup.

"I come from the realm of mixing based on analog consoles," says Carranza. "I had been mixing extensively with DAWs but I never felt they gave me the sound that I wanted. I went on a mission to try all the different summing amps out there and when I hit the Dangerous I said 'That's IT!'  Running my DAW with the Dangerous 2-BUS on the back end added all this depth and width to the mix. There's such a noticeable benefit using the 2-BUS compared to mixing in-the-box."

He notes that artists and musicians who are really in tune with the recording process always notice the improvement in the sound of their tracks mixed or recorded through the Dangerous 2-BUS. "They ask me, 'Why does that sound so good?' - The 2-BUS sounds so open and yet it's so tight on the bottom."

Carranza engineered and mixed Jack Johnson's "In Between Dreams" album through the Dangerous 2-BUS. "People have told us that it's the best sounding record he's made," said Carranza. He also recently mixed Johnson's hit album "Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies" using his Dangerous Music rig, as well as several of the tunes from the upcoming Ozomatli album. "It's my go-to piece of equipment. The Dangerous 2-BUS sounds the way you want it to - there's no frequency bump. It never gets in the way of the music. It's so versatile, I can use it for sub-mixing or tracking multiple guitar amps."

Commenting on the other Dangerous music gear he owns Carraza says, "I'm a snob when it comes to speakers. I've tested pretty much every monitor controller and nothing comes close to the Dangerous Monitor. I have the Dangerous Master and MQ products as well. [Equipment designer] Chris Muth is a genius. The equipment sounds amazing!"

Robert Carranza recently finished recording and mixing Ozomatli's new album and has started work with Baller Banks (Record Collection/Warner Brothers).  He recently mixed Ricky Martin and Dirtie Blond and recorded Mars Volta and Los Lobos. He produced, engineered and mixed the most recent Jack Johnson release, which entered the Billboard charts at Number 1. Carranza's discography includes multiple titles by Los Lobos, Jack Johnson, Molotov, Ozomatli as well as albums by Beck, Supergrass, Blackalicious and Lucious Jackson to name a few. Carranza is a three-time Grammy winner with Ozomatli (2004/2005) and Molotov (2005).

To contact Robert Carranza visit Tsunami Entertainment at http://www.tsunamient.com

Dubway Studios Adds Dangerous Music 'Monitor ST/SR'
Busy NYC Recording Facility Chooses Monitor ST/SR 5.1 Controller for new 4th Room, alongside their Dangerous 2-BUS analog summing mixers

Edmeston, NY - September 12, 2006 - Dangerous Music, Inc. today announced that Dubway Studios, NYC has installed a Dangerous Monitor ST/SR surround setup in their new fourth studio. The Monitor ST is a remote-control based programmable input source and speaker switcher with integrated cue and talkback systems, including an onboard headphone power amplifier, while the Monitor SR expansion module provides comprehensive 5.1 surround monitoring. Dubway Studios has a busy roster of television shows, live-recorded  events, film and new media. Their current clients include MTV, VH1 and Nickleodeon, among others. Dubway is familiar with Dangerous Music products, having used Dangerous 2-BUS analog summing amps on more than 200 mixes over the past 4 years.

"When choosing the Dangerous Monitor ST/SR we talked about what we'd need for a 5.1 studio and how to achieve that in a small studio environment," said Mike Crehore, Co-owner and Producer at Dubway. "We just didn't have room for a full size console, and the Monitor ST integrates really well with the Dangerous 2-BUS."
"I know Dangerous Music's quality products from using the Dangerous 2-BUS on every mix I do at Dubway," stated Jason Marcucci, Chief Engineer at Dubway. "I can't really work without them. I love the 2-BUS." Marcucci added, " I'm so busy mixing projects for MTV and VH1 that we needed a new room for me to mix in. When we were designing the room, we knew we had to make it ready for surround for future DVD, HDTV and film-oriented projects. We checked out other monitor controllers, but after using and listening to the Dangerous Monitor ST/SR we definitely liked it best." Marcucci's first mix in the new room was a live recording of rock band New Found Glory for MTV2's Discover and Download.

Live@VH1.com is one of Dubways biggest clients. Dubway has recorded every installment of the musical performances from stars including Beck, Alanis Morissette, Moby, Chris Cornell, The White Stripes, Train and Wilco, to name only a handful. The Beck and Morissette performances were aired as full half-hour shows on VH1. All the shows were mixed using the Dangerous Music 2-BUS.
Another major Dubway client is Nickelodeon's The Backyardigans. "The show keeps the studio so busy right now that we needed a new room to mix other projects, so we built our fourth studio," says Steven Alvarado, Studio Manager at Dubway. They call new studio the Red Room - all their studios are named after colors. Backyardigans' engineer Crehore added, "I've mixed all the Backyardigans episodes using my Dangerous 2-BUS." Dubway's new Red Room features both a Dangerous Monitor ST/SR and Dangerous 2-BUS.

"Another thing I like about the Dangerous 2-BUS is access to the analog signal for inserting analog outboard gear," added Al Houghton, Co-owner and Producer at Dubway. "Since I insert it at an analog level, the alignment of the audio is always there. For example I like to combine a compressed mix of the drums, using an analog compressor, with the Pro Tools mix. It's very hard to do that without a tool like the Dangerous 2-BUS, which makes it easy and it sounds great."

"In terms of Dubway and where we fit into the general music business, we do a lot of TV and rock recording and mixing. We're all musicians and mix engineers so we're pretty into the sound of the music itself. I use Pro Tools for all its editing and instant recall for TV, and by combining that with the Dangerous 2-BUS, and now the Monitor ST/SR, I don't have to sacrifice the audio quality. And not just for us, but for the clients too, who recognize the quality of our mixes. It makes a difference in terms of the business," concluded Houghton.

For more information on Dubway Studios NYC telephone (212)-352-3070 or visit http://www.dubway.com/

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