Keyfax Alan Parsons' Art & Science of Sound Recording

Written by Alan Parsons and Keyfax CEO Julian Colbeck, and hosted by Alan himself, The Art & Science Of Sound Recording took almost three years to make and is the most thorough and complete look at the modern recording process ever undertaken.

The DVD begins with a brief history of recording, filmed at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles. Parsons' own career began at Abbey Road studios in London in the days of 8-track analog and his personal memories of 16-track (what he used on Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon), 24-track, early digital, to today's DAW systems are only part of what makes this program unique.

Equally important are the more than 40 fellow engineers, producers, and artists interviewed by Alan throughout the DVD, whose insights and perspectives give the program a musical breadth that includes country (Chuck Ainlay, Tony Brown), r&b and hip hop (Jimmy Douglass, Erykah Badu) and pop (John Fields, John Shanks) that perfectly compliments Alan's personal classic rock heritage.

Naturally, though, Alan's star-studded career as a recording engineer, producer, composer and artist acts as the central force behind the series; his work with The Beatles on the albums Abbey Road and Let It Be, Pink Floyd, The Hollies, Pilot, Ambrosia, Al Stewart and others (including The Alan Parsons Project) is frequently used as reference material to illustrate a recording technique or process.

Territory covered by this DVD spans soundproofing to mixing. DVD-1 focuses on the main components of a recording system from actually building a studio or modifying a space for recording, through monitors, consoles and controllers, microphones, digital audio and computers, and MIDI.

DVD-2 starts out with a look all the major processes (and processors), starting with EQ, and followed by compressors & limiters, noise gates, reverb, and delay. A brand new Alan Parsons song 'All Our Yesterdays' makes its debut in a section called A Band Tracking Session, where you get to sit in on a session with Alan and some of LA's top players including Simon Phillips, Nathan East, Rami Jaffee, and Tim Pierce.

One of the DVD's most popular Sections follows - Recording Vocals, featuring not only established stars like Michael McDonald and the irrepressible Erykah Badu but also rising stars such as Abi Colbeck from Sabretooth and 2011 American Idol star James Durbin.

DVD-3 features in-depth looks at the processes involved in recording guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums, as well as recording a choir, plus the age-old 'tricky' recording process of simultaneously recording acoustic guitar with vocal.

This final DVD concludes with the Art & Science Of Sound Recording's longest Section, on Mixing, where you get to see and hear how Alan mixes All Our Yesterdays, the song you have seen being tracked and overdubbed, and finally one of the DVD's most fun and popular Sections Dealing With Disasters.

This invaluable instructional DVD applies classic, old school recording experience to the modern idiom and looks certain to be a standard work on the subject for years to come.

There is also a fully interactive website containing source material, background videos, and forums monitored by Alan himself.

www.artandscienceofsound.com also contains 10-point 'Quizzes' on each of the 24 Sections. In addition to being fun, these are a great way to reinforce knowledge gained through watching the videos and helping turn this into a complete 'course' on modern recording.

DVD-1

• A Brief History Of Recording
• Studio Acoustics
• Microphones
• Consoles & Controllers
• Digital Audio & Computers
• Monitoring
• MIDI

DVD-2

• EQ
• Compressors & Limiters
• Noise Gates
• Reverb
• Delays
• A Band Tracking Session
• Vocals
• Internet Recording

DVD-3

• Drums
• Keyboards
• Bass
• Guitar
• Acoustic Guitar With Voice
• Recording A Choir
• Approaches To Live Recording
• Mixing
• Dealing With Disasters