>> from the editor...

The print edition of our online Producer/Engineer directory is almost here -- if you're interested in a "name your price" ad to position your company, studio or industry service in front of our international audience, there's still time. To request an advertising rate card or more information, please send email to Advertise@rpmdirect.com. Meanwhile, if you have industry related press, news, announcements, client updates, music reviews or something else to contribute, send it to News@rpmdirect.com.

For the seventh year in a row, an array of Audio-Technica microphones was chosen for the internationally televised VH1 broadcast of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held this year at the Waldorf Astoria Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan. Over 80 A-T mics were used to capture the audio for one of the most celebrated music events of 2004. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honors legendary performers, producers, songwriters, disc jockeys and other industry notables who have made rock and roll the powerful force that it is in our culture today. The 19th annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony honored Jackson Browne, The Dells, George Harrison, Prince, Bob Seger, Traffic, and ZZ Top. A number of Audio-Technica microphones was utilized during the induction ceremony including the AT4054 which was used for front-line vocals for Jackson Browne, Steve Winwood, Bob Seger, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Dhani Harrison (George’s son), and The Dells. A-T’s acclaimed Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless System was used for vocals by Paul Shaffer. The technical staff for the induction ceremony included Mitch Maketansky as Audio Coordinator, responsible for organizing and assigning all the inputs and microphones for the event. John Harris was the Lead Engineer for recording specialists Effanel Music, the remote recording company that both recorded the program and mixed the broadcast, while Jay Vicari was the Mix Engineer. For more information on the complete range of Audio-Technica products, contact Karen Emerson, Audio-Technica. Tel: (330) 686-2600 or www.audio-technica.com

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>> The Orchard Introduces The Industry's Most Sophisticated And Transparent Accounting System

The Orchard, the world's leading provider of independent music, recently announced the launch of the music industry's most comprehensive web-based sales accounting and reporting system. The system, which had been in beta release with select artist and labels, is now available to all of The Orchard's thousands of artists and labels. The new web-based accounting system is designed to make tracking sales activity understandable and fully transparent, with easy to comprehend reporting at the lowest, individual track level of sales activity. With a single keystroke, each Orchard artist and label can access detailed information on CD and digital sales, ranging from total album sales down to per track data. This new service is one of many new initiatives designed to continue The Orchard's tradition of innovation for independent artists, including offering state-of-the-art distribution services to the content holders it represents. "The Orchard is committed to leading the industry in the level of service we provide for independent music distribution," said Max Orlov , COO of the Orchard. "We have deployed significant resources and assembled a dream team of technologists to make sure we create and offer tools and services that set the standard for the industry, from the major labels on down." The company's plans also include a series of platform enhancements to include a variety of artist and label tools and services to help independent musicians better utilize the extensive distribution and marketing opportunities presented by the Orchard. The Orchard is currently testing a web-based, digital merchandising platform with select US-based digital music services, and expects to formally launch the platform by mid-year. For more information visit www.positivebiz.com

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>> Positive Managment Client News Flash

The Positive roster has been busy this year. A few highlights include Mark Frith (Shane McGowan, James Taylor Quartet, Stereo MC's, Tom McRae) who started the year off by mixing a live DVD for The Snow Patrol and is now co-producing (with Chris Hughes) new material for The Electric Soft Parade. Chris Hughes (Adam & The Ants, Tears For Fears, Robert Plant, Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi) started his career as drummer with Adam and The Ants and produced "Kings of The Wild Frontier" as well as production of the Tears For Fears albums, including "Songs from The Big Chair", on which he co-wrote the single, "Everybody Wants To Rule The World". He is now working on new material with The Electric Soft Parade. Tim Oliver (M People, Sinead O'Connor, Happy Mondays, New Order) is a keyboard player and bass guitarist and is a highly creative and flexible producer in demand. He mixed tracks on the “Festival In The Desert” album and has been working on a new album with Robert Plant. He is currently developing and co-writing with singer/songwriter David Blazye. For more information contact Carole Davies Positive Management Tel: 01225 311661 or visit www.positivebiz.com

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February was another mix heavy month at The Cutting Room. The month started out with Dead Prez mixing the track “Hell Yeah” featuring Jay-Z. Dave Dar engineered the sessions with Marco Bruno assisting. Maryanne Marino (Lava Records) returned to Studio A in March to finish mixing her debut record with engineer Kevin Killen (U2, Elvis Costello) and producer Peter Zizzo. Look for a possible summer release from Maryanne. Also seeing time in Studio A were hip hop stars Mos Def and Talib Kweli as well as renowned Venezuelan Producer Andres Levin (Chaka Khan and Tina Turner, Gladys Night). The Beatnuts continued their lockdown of Studio B, finishing up tracks for their new record due out later this year. Context Productions continued work in Studio B with various artists as part of our Artist Development program. Check out contextmusicgroup.com. For more information contact The Cutting Room (212)-260-0905 or visit www.thecuttingroom.com

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>> Air America Adds AP Radio to New Line-Up

Air America Radio has launched its new radio network using AP Radio's text and audio services as the primary news resource. Headed by Emmy Award-winning Saturday Night Live veteran Al Franken and the co-creator of The Daily Show, Lizz Winstead, Air America Radio is using a variety of AP products, including both AP audio actuality services, PrimeCuts and SoundBank. In addition, the talk radio network will use AP's online political reference tool, AP Politics, to help develop their own reporting, along with the industry's most robust, 24-hour text service. "This is an exciting new network, and we are pleased to be the exclusive information provider," said Thomas P. Callahan, general manager of AP Radio. "AP's rich content will provide Air America's talent important background and understanding on today's major issues." AP PrimeCuts and SoundBank are two separate Internet-delivered audio actuality services--one that features audio clips from today's major news, entertainment, sports and business stories, and the other that features cuts from yesterday. PrimeCuts offers some 300 audio cuts a day for the last 72 hours, while SoundBank provides audio spanning eight decades of news. AP Politics is an online reference tool for reporters, providing them stories on political candidates, campaign finance details, candidate voting history and bios, election-night delegate tracking and much more. AP NewsPower is the industry's leading text news and information product, delivering breaking state, national and international news along with the latest entertainment information, complete sports and business coverage. With a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world, The Associated Press provides content to more than 15,000 news outlets around the world, including more than 5,000 television and radio stations and 1,000 U.S. media Web sites. For more information visit AP Radio Network at www.apbroadcast.com

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>> Lippman Entertainment Client Roster Update

We recently caught up with Lippman Entertainment for a client update. Dave Hillis is co-producing two records right now, the Twilight Singers and the Gutter Twins, both with Greg Dulli (Afghan Wigs) and Mark Lanagan (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age); Denny Weston Jr. recently co-wrote one song and produced three on the almost triple platinum Hilary Duff record Metamorphosis and is currently shopping his publishing and a cartoon he created of a dysfunctional rock band on the road called The Bald Brothers. Chris Fudurich is finishing up mixing the band Rory he produced and engineered for One Eleven Records. Chris also produced the critically acclaimed record Let Go by Nada Surf and has also produced records for Allister, RX Bandits and Finch. Mark Renk and Jeff Kollman are producing the band Krave for hearitlikeitbuy.com. Mark Renk also continues to be a valuable asset in the studio with his vocal coaching and vocal producing. Mark just completed producing vocals for Paige Hamilton on the new Helmet record and also coaches for POD, Audio Vent, Poltrona, Drowning Pools, Strata and others. Gary Tole just mixed the new rock band ZO2, who are being compared to The Darkness. In addition to engineering and mixing larger records, whenever possible Gary finds the time to work on up and comers like ZO2 and Joe Bonamassa, whose Indi release has sold near 20,000 copies. For more information contact David Surnow at Lippman Entertainment 310-689-6500

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The return of Adina Howard hit Threshold this month with Chief Mastering Engineer Stephen Marsh finishing of her long-awaited new album "2nd Coming". The album, executive produced by Max Gousse and featuring guest appearances from Missy Elliott and Jamie Foxx, will be available through Rufftown Entertianment. In other Threshold mastering news; Sony Urban's B2K just completed their "Greatest Hits" album with Marsh and 2004 USA Songwriting Competition winner Gabriel Mann stopped in to see Marsh and master a Promo EP which features his award wining track "Lighted Up" released at this year's SXSW. For more info visit Threshold Sound + Vision

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>> Number Of Paying Downloaders Nearly Triples In 2003

As the music industry continues efforts to integrate the growing popularity of digital music downloading with traditional retail distribution, 2003 witnessed a veritable explosion of fee-based digital music service introductions and a nearly three-fold increase in paid downloading due to experimentation among American downloaders, according to global market research organization Ipsos-Insight. New findings from TEMPO, Ipsos-Insight's quarterly tracker of American digital music behaviors, reveal that in December 2003 as many as 22% of American downloaders aged 12 and older had paid a fee to download digital music off of the Internet. This translates into an estimated 10 million experienced fee-based downloaders within the current U.S. population (according to 2000 U.S. Census figures). Further, this number represents a nearly three-fold increase in fee-based digital music experimentation within the past year. In winter 2002, less than one out of 10 (8%) U.S. downloaders had paid a fee for digital music. U.S. Downloaders Experiment with Fee-based Digital Music in Growing Numbers. "In the past year, high-profile litigation by the RIAA towards high-volume individual file-sharers coupled with the launch of several new consumer-friendly fee-based online music services has prompted many downloaders to experiment with paid downloading for the first time," said Matt Kleinschmit, Director for Ipsos-Insight's Technology & Communications practice, and author of the Tempo tracking research study. "This is the clearest sign yet that American music enthusiasts are becoming increasingly dependent on digitally formatted and distributed music, and as a result, are sampling many of the recently launched fee-based online music services to find a legal means of online music acquisition. The next order of business for fee-based online music services is to both continue to lure new consumers to their respective services, as well as retain users who may be visiting for experimentation purposes only." For more information on this report, visit www.ipsos-na.com.

>> Digital Downloading Must Now Be Viewed As A Growth Area For Record Companies

The promising success of legal digital music services, such as iTunes, as well as the outlook of newer types of music features, including ring-tones and ring-backs, represent both a growth area and challenge for the music industry, according to Shahid Khan, a managing director with the Media & Entertainment practice of BearingPoint, Inc., one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms. "The issue is essentially being forced on the music industry, both from a content owner's perspective, as well as from a new business venture's perspective," said Khan. "Ignoring or fighting these growth areas is no longer an option. Record companies must now transform themselves to take advantage of the market, or be left behind. For new business ventures, the opportunities for the industry are clear and diverse, especially in the infrastructure and support services areas," added Khan, a veteran of the business with more than 12 years of experience with such leading companies as Bertelsmann, Viacom and Scholastic. Khan explained his insights during the recent Billboard Music and Money Symposium, where he participated as a panelist for the "Investing in the Digital Future" discussion. The panel explored such growth areas in the music industry as digital downloads and ring tones, as well as the outlook for new ventures. Additional topics discussed were the future market opportunities for niche players and for support services around these growth areas, such as end-to-end operational infrastructure, including billing, digital rights management, rights tracking, sales audit, and royalty reporting. Also discussed, how owners of intellectual property (publishers and recording companies) need to re-orient their internal processes and systems from release planning, product creation, contracts management, and royalty distribution to be more agile in order to respond quickly and strongly to market opportunities.

>> The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Upgrades with Euphonix

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which airs nightly on NBC, recently installed a host of upgrades to their audio facilities, located in Studio 3 on the NBC Burbank lot in Los Angeles, CA. A total of three Euphonix consoles are now in use on the Tonight Show. Two Euphonix System 5 digital mixing consoles have found new homes in Studio 3 Music room and for the PA. These desks join the existing Euphonix CS3000B production console, which has been reliably serving the show for six years. The Music room features a 220-channel System 5 with 48 multi-track busses, 16 auxes, and 12 mix busses. Ninety-six remote controlled microphone preamps, 48 analog I/O and 24 AES I/O allow the mixers to handle both the guest act and the house band with ease. At the PA mixing position, a second System 5 has been installed. It features a 164-channel digital audio console with 40 faders with 96 remote controlled microphone preamps and 48 analog I/O. Also on the NBC lot in Burbank, the KNBC local news studio upgraded to a System 5-B at the end of 2003 to handle the increased audio complexity of the daily news broadcasts. Earlier in 2003, KVEA Telemundo moved their System 5-B console onto the NBC lot. The console is used in the production of Spanish language programming. Another Euphonix CS Series console is used by NBC network news. For more information visit Euphonix at www.euphonix.com

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>> Cole Voice Studios Expands

Cari Cole Voice Studios, the Kips Bay Manhattan voice studio serving contemporary singers for 18 years, is expanding their facility, adding a second room to their existing Digidesign Pro Tools demo/teaching room. At Cari Cole Voice Studios, teachers utilize wireless headsets while recording vocal technique and coaching sessions directly to CD. Sessions are held in acoustically tuned rooms, equipped with AKG, Sennheiser, Neumann, Shure and Electro-Voice microphones, an Avalon 737, and Mackie consoles. "Using Pro Tools give us an edge with our singers," explained Cole. "They can listen back and improve their sound quickly. This develops a singers' artistry and performance in the studio and in the 'live' arena tenfold. For singers working on their records, our pre-production vocal sessions improve their recordings dramatically. The singer has to dig down deep into the character of each song as well as perfect the more mechanical elements of pitch and phrasing. We have an unbeatable methodology for both aspects." Cole has worked with Grammy winner Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, among thousands of vocalists since 1986. Associate teachers trained in Cole's methodology, Jennifer Maione and Jamie Obstbaum-Leonhart, also join the studio teaching technique, coaching and performance classes. Along with the facility expansion, additional group classes including yogic breathing for singers, music theory for singers and guitar accompaniment classes are tailored to the professional and aspiring vocalist of NY. For more information visit Cari Cole Voice Studios at www.vocalmag.com

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>> Sony may offer free music downloads at McDonald's in U.S.

U.S. fast food giant McDonald's Corp is planning to team up with the recording arm of Sony Corp to give away free music downloads with its hamburgers, the Los Angeles Times recently reported. The firms are in the process of negotiating an agreement under which the fast food chain would market Sony's new music download service by giving diners tunes from online store Sony Connect, the paper said. McDonald's expects to give away more than 100 million Sony Connect songs in the United States alone, and will receive unspecified discounts on the purchase of some tunes at Sony Connect in return, the report said. The paper quoted sources familiar with the deal as saying that Chicago-based McDonald's would put aside $30 million to advertise the scheme in the United States ahead of Sony Connect's launch later this year. The new download service, part of Sony's bid to recapture some of the huge recording industry market share lost in recent years to illegal Internet download services, will charge 99 cents per song. But diners would receive codes to download free tunes when they buy certain menu items at McDonald's restaurants, according to the newspaper.

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>> Employment Bonanza...

Barbara Wesotski is about to fall victim to the forthcoming BMG merger. She has nearly 20 years music industry experience, the last 12 years in A&R Administration at major labels. Barbarra is currently Associate Director of A&R Administration at Arista. Her expertise is in budgeting and coordinating recording, problem-solving and trouble-shooting. She can be very instrumental in any stage of production and am also available for work on a part-time basis. Contact Barbara Wesotski at (212) 924-5449. Or click here to check view Barbara Wesotski's Resume.

The Film Music Network has announced the launch of www.FilmMusicJobs.com, a new online web service with current industry job listings for composers, songwriters, bands and more. Current job listing categories include: Film & TV Composers Needed for Film & TV Productions, Songs / Music Needed to License for Film & TV Productions. Assistantship and Internship Opportunities, Music Supervisors Needed. For more complete information, visit www.filmmusic.net

Bennett Studios recently brought Ken Thornhill on as studio manager. Thornhill worked for the last 8 years as record production manager at Soundtrack Studios in Manhattan. Studio owner Dae Bennett added, "Everyone here is excited that we've been able to work on such high end projects this year. With five of those projects winning Grammys in only our second year of business and the great addition to our staff of manager Ken Thornhill, we're piosed to have another exceptional year." Visit Bennett Studios online at www.bennettstudios.com

Billboard magazine and Berklee College of Music have partnered to create the Billboard / Berklee Career Center, the leading music job and networking destination on the Web. This collaboration greatly expands career development options and resources available to performers, music industry professionals and to you as an employer. With over 30,000 registered musicians, music industry professionals and Berklee alumni, our Career Center is the best place to advertise for employees or talent. Posting an opening is a simple as visiting this link

Before you seek a PR writer to send out your next press release, you might want to think about all of your options. Syan Newton, a leader in fresh and innovative writing for labels, studios, and events; has expanded her services to include artists as well as other clientele wanting to get exposure. If you are someone wanting to get publicity or recognition you will be more than satisfied with Syan's press writing. Contact Syan Newton Expert Press Release Writer in Atlanta, GA 30313 Phone: 770-414-0572 syan_newton@yahoo.com

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