Vintage King Blog

March is here and you know what that means... NEW GIVEAWAY TIME! That's right, every month we team up with one of your favorite pro audio brands to give one lucky winner a special gift. This month Vintage King and Focusrite Pro are giving away a Focusrite ISA 428 MkII mic preamp and ADN8 card. The Focusrite ISA 428 MkII offers up four of the brand’s prestigious ISA-series transformer-based preamps in a 2U rackmount unit. Throw in the ADN8 card we’re also giving away and you instantly have eight additional channels of I/O. This works perfectly for tracking a few sources on its own or for adding expanded I/O to pretty much any interface with Dante or ADAT connectivity. Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, the pro audio community suffered a tremendous loss when Rupert Neve passed away at the age of 94. Known to many as the father of modern recording, Rupert's passing shook colleagues, fans and musicians alike. He was known for being an incredibly kind man and a brilliant innovator who inspired legions of music makers with his...

Erin Tonkon broke into the world of engineering at a young age and started learning under the best at NYU's Clive Davis Insitute of Recorded Music. During her studies, the budding engineer began working with production legend Tony Visconti. Over the course of six years, Erin would work side-by-side with Tony, including handling the engineering duties for David Bowie's final record, Blackstar, in addition to releases from Esperanza Spalding and The Damned. In recent years, Erin has continued to amass an incredible discography of work, including mixing albums for Sad13, Richard Hell, Rosie Tucker, Lady Lamb and more. She is also the co-founder of a new company that is trying to revive the New York City music scene post-pandemic by bringing together musicians, producers, multiple studios and a new live venue. Continue reading →

Detroit-based techno pioneer Carl Craig believes that to come out of the Motor City you need to be powerful. This statement not only applies to the town's musical exports, but to the pro audio creations being built here by the likes of Mesanovic. "I'm really proud of Deni [Mesanovic] for coming up with a great speaker," says Carl of the new Mesanovic RTM10 monitor. "I'm ready for his speaker to impact the world in the same way that Detroit music has impacted the world." Continue reading →

Whether he’s expanding minds in post-rock legends Tortoise, reimagining Sheryl Crow (yes, that Sheryl Crow!) with saxophonist Joshua Redman, or chopping up work on the spot with drummer Makaya McCraven, Jeff Parker has a natural feel for sounds that captivate. A significant force in the Chicago experimental and jazz scene, presently based out of California, his genre-defying work challenges listeners to think and feel beyond categories. Parker is a supremely prolific sideman and studio collaborator, but he also happens to have several solo records under his belt too. Today we’re digging into his latest, last year’s Suite for Max Brown, an informal companion to his previous record, The New Breed, which was honored by London's Observer as the best jazz album of 2016. Continue reading →

Focal is often considered one of the global leaders in the realm of acoustics, a claim long backed by its innovative studio monitor and headphone designs. The brand's latest release, the Clear Mg Professional headphones ($1,490), push the technology and performance of the original Clear Professional to brand new heights. Designed with music creators in mind, the Clear Mg Professional are circum-aural open-back headphones that offer optimized performance for the full frequency spectrum. Focal is reusing the original speaker drivers of the Clear Professionals (15/8" with M-shaped inverted domes), but have constructed them with Magnesium. By using Magnesium, Focal's research and development team has created a speaker driver formula that offers the right mix of lightness, rigidity and damping. Continue reading →

Heavy Melody Music is led by a team of composers and sound designers with long resumes in the worlds of film, TV and video games. Since its formation by Dave Fraser and Neil Goldberg in 1999, the company has worked with elite clients like Electronic Arts, 2K Games, Atari, NFL, Sony, Gillette and NBC. In addition to sound design, the brand's sister company, Heavyocity Media, makes award-winning virtual instruments. Recently, Heavy Melody Music and Heavyocity Media moved into a new facility and found themselves with enough space to fit a large-format recording console. The group had previously worked with Vintage King Audio Consultant Jacob Schneider to install three API THE BOX consoles and wanted to scale up with something they were familiar with. Continue reading →

For nearly three decades, Vintage King has been helping studio owners outfit their facilities with the best in recording consoles and control surfaces. Our team of Audio Consultants can assess your needs, help you stay within your budget and find the desk or controller that best fits in your studio. While social distancing requirements make demoing gear in person somewhat more complicated, Vintage King has come up with a solution that allows studio owners and engineers the ability to test drive gear from anywhere. If you're interested in purchasing a new recording console or control surface, we can help facilitate a virtual demo that will help your selection process. Continue reading →

In January 2020, Vintage King visited EastWest Studios to showcase how the historic studio utilizes BURL Audio converters for our Workflow series. While we were there we spoke with Studio Manager Candace Stewart about EastWest's colorful past, including its early days as a grocery store and its transition into a world-renowned recording space under the United Western Recorders name. Continue on below to learn more about the history of EastWest and discover what classic records were made within its wall. Continue reading →

For over two decades, artists from around the globe have been flocking to Maximus Music to find the key to that Southern sound. Owner and founder Ira Parker has propelled the Queen City studio to success and brought in an incredible array of talent including Anthony Hamilton, G-Eazy, Rick Ross, Jadakiss and many more. We recently sat down with Ira for our new Studio Spotlight series to talk about Maximus Music in more detail. Continue below to find out how Ira started the studio, hear his favorite stories about artists working in the room, and discover some of his go-to gear that he picked up from Vintage King Audio Consultant Anthony Erwin. Continue reading →