Vintage King Blog

The goal to bring more female-identifying individuals into the audio industry has been the driving force behind the Women's Audio Mission since it was founded over 15 years ago. Formed by Executive Director Terri Winston at City College of San Francisco, the organization essentially began as a small club with around 15 participants. 

In the time since their initial meetings, Winston has created something incredible. She has worked to create the only professional recording studio in the world completely built and run by women. With an impressive home base featuring state-of-the-art gear from Avid, Barefoot Sound and Trident, WAM has been able to provide audio training and work experience to over 1,500 women and girls from the Bay Area and beyond. Continue reading →

As one of the first hit songs to ever use a Moog synthesizer, "Popcorn" was both a sign of its times and a look far ahead into the future of music. Before soft synthesizers were ever a glimmer in an engineer's eye, electronic-music pioneers like "Popcorn" writer Gershon Kingsley were using big, bulky analog units with no presets to create musical magic.

Kingsley, now 95-years-old, began playing the synthesizer in the 1960s, but that’s not where his love of music began. Kingsley had already earned a name for himself in the world of musical theatre, even earning a Tony Nomination in 1958 for his Conducting and Directing. Throughout his lengthy career, he’s arranged music for film and television, Broadway musicals, and many songs for Jewish religious ceremonies, but his most famous work is an instrumental synth-pop song inspired by a salty snack. Continue reading →

Ahead of this week's Moogfest in Raleigh, North Carolina, Moog Music has announced the launch of a new synthesizer, the Moog Grandmother. This semi-modular synthesizer features a built-in arpeggiator, sequencer and spring reverb tank, allowing both novices and synth enthusiasts the ability to use the instrument straight out of the box.

Moog's latest synth features two analog oscillators with four wave shapes each and a hard sync option that lets you sync the second oscillator to the first. These oscillators are based on the version in the Moog MiniMoog. The synthesizer features an easy-to-use arpeggiator and sequencer, which can store up to three sequences with up to 256 notes each. Continue reading →

The evolution of control surfaces, DAW software and plug-ins have led more and more audio creators to work in the box. Vintage King and Avid want to help one lucky fan make the leap for themselves by giving away an incredible prize package featuring the Avid S3 control surface and Pro Tools Dock.

When used on their own, the Avid S3 and Pro Tools Dock are extremely powerful tools that can control your DAW in a single highly portable surface. Pairing the two together yields incredible results as you are able to take advantage of timesaving touch workflows and custom controls.
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ADAM Audio and Vintage King are teaming together for a special evening with producer, engineer and mixer Brendan O'Brien on Wednesday, June 6, 2018 at 6:30 PM. Brendan launched his career working with the Black Crowes on their Shake Your Money Maker album and has gone on to work with artists like Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

During the event, Brendan will be deconstructing a mix from a recent session and showing off how he achieved the final results in Pro Tools. Throughout his presentation, he will talk about his workflow in the studio, the choices he made in the mix and his overall vision for the project. Continue reading →

One of the best parts of my position at Vintage King is being able to try new preamps I would normally never get the chance to use. A few weeks ago I was introduced to the Black Box MM-1 and immediately became a huge fan.

The MM-1 is a unique all-tube preamp with two gain stages and custom wound input and output transformers, allowing independent control of the Pentode and Triode stages and the ability to blend between the two. The potentiometers aren’t stepped, which allows the smallest tweaks on either side to drastically reshape the tone. Continue reading →

All Sound is a North Hollywood-based post-production space helmed by Nick Couscouris, a veteran in recording and mixing for advertising campaigns, films, TV shows, sports and more. Prior to his recent work on Happy Ending With Nando Vila and A Quiet Place, Couscouris teamed up with Vintage King's Chris Bolitho to bring in an incredible package of new gear to All Sound.

Dubbing his workflow as "streamlined with constant creativity," it was clear from the beginning that Couscouris wanted a set-up that would enable him to work quickly and keep ideas flowing. With that in mind, Bolitho and Couscouris envisioned a centerpiece in the new space with two Avid S3 control surfaces flanked by two Avid Docks. Each surface alone is a powerful tool, but the combination of the two enables you to use some timesaving custom controls. Continue reading →

Things move fast in the world of audio production. If you stop to catch your breath you may get left behind. One of the best ways to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of the audio industry is by subscribing to trade magazines, which are written specifically for audio engineers like you.

A few weeks back, we covered books on recording and mixing, but today we'll be looking at some of the most popular audio trade magazines in circulation. Don’t worry, they have digital versions too. Now, go read something and learn before your next session!

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When it comes to top quality microphones, every engineer in the business knows and loves Neumann mics, especially the U67. That's why it was particularly exciting when the brand announced at Winter NAMM 2018 that they would be releasing a historically accurate U67 reissue, the first of its kind since the original was discontinued.

What sets the U67 apart from any other microphone in the Neumann family is it’s ability to capture an insane amount of low end. The proximity effect of the U67 is more prominent than any other model Neumann offers and is a favorite to many engineers for capturing an intimate vocal performance. Continue reading →

Antelope Audio is offering 10% off the Edge microphone throughout May. See below for more details.

For over 20 years, Antelope Audio has been dedicated to being a defining force in the worlds of digital and analog audio. With their incredible converters, plug-in models and analog circuit design, they've certainly done just that. The company's new Edge Strip acts as the culmination of all that hard work and innovation.

As Antelope Audio's entry into the microphone modeling arena, the Edge Strip is made up of three key elements; the Edge Modeling Microphone, the Discrete MP Interface and the AFX plug-ins pack. Throughout this blog, we'll detail how these three work together to give you access to a world of vintage microphones at a fraction of the price. Continue reading →