Dweezil Zappa Gets Dangerous On The Road

This release just went out today, chronicling some of my work with Dweezil Zappa. It has been featured already at Mix Magazine Online, check it out:

Edmeston, NY — August 4, 2009 — In a joint announcement today with AMD (NYSE: AMD), Dangerous Music released details of Dweezil Zappa’s road recording rig using 48-channels of Dangerous 2-Bus LT analog summing and Dangerous Monitor ST speaker controller, allowing immediate mixing of the ‘Zappa Plays Zappa’ live shows — even in a hotel room. The “Room Service Rig” consists of a PC Audio Labs computer powered by dual AMD Opteron™ quad-core processors, running Steinberg’s NUENDO DAW software along with three 2-Bus LT summing amps and Monitor ST, providing large-format analog console mixing quality on the road.

“The pairing of AMD and Dangerous Music equipment has made a tremendous difference to the overall sonic detail of the final mixed music,” says Dweezil. “It’s hard to believe that I’m able to get these kinds of results from a portable mixing rig. It’s truly inspiring. Simply put, I have achieved my best mixes ever with the help of the Dangerous Music gear.”

Charlie Boswell, AMD Director of Digital Media & Entertainment, noted: “Dweezil Zappa has utilized Digital Audio Workstations based on AMD Opteron processors for the past six years both in the production of his own music and most recently in the recording of live ZPZ concerts. Gail Zappa depends upon AMD powered workstations to handle the mission critical role of archiving, producing and building the catalog from the historical Frank Zappa Vault at UMRK* - with releases on Zappa Records and Vaulternative Records. This newest AMD addition to the Zappa workflow is called the ‘Room Service Rig’ because it’s sometimes operated from a hotel room after a show, or possibly on the bus in between shows. AMD collaborated with our friends over at Dangerous Music and PC Audio Labs to make the ‘Room Service Rig’ happen. Its main purpose is to provide the highest studio sonic and mobile production capability to an international touring unit like ZPZ.”

Boswell also explained why the ‘The Room Service Rig’ was aptly named. “Dweezil was not interested in simply hacking together typical ‘board mixes’ of Frank Zappa classics. He chose Dangerous Music and AMD in order to deliver studio quality mixes and mastering for the fan base. He feels the technology should not only fulfill the Zappa quality requirement but it should also adapt to spontaneity of life on the road.” Visit Charlie Boswell’s blog at: http://globalnerding.blogspot.com.

Pioneered by the folks at Dangerous Music in 2001, the Dangerous 2-Bus analog-summing mixer was created to bring back the analog sound quality engineers have been craving in their digital audio environment, while maintaining the fast workflow and recall capabilities they have come to depend on. The Dangerous 2-Bus is a 16-by-2 summing device designed to help DAW users achieve better mix performance through the use of cutting-edge analog audio circuit design. As engineers and musicians themselves, the Dangerous Music team has noted that “in-the-box” mixes from DAW systems don’t equal mixes performed on high-end large-format analog recording consoles. The solution is the 2-Bus’ pristine audio path that delivers nuance, depth and clarity to a mix without any added coloration or distortion. The Dangerous 2-Bus allows the full potential of any digital audio workstation to be realized – audibly, in terms of sound quality, spatial detail and headroom, and ergonomically, through the preservation of DAW recall and automation capabilities and by the non-destructive integration of outboard analog equipment. The transparent sound of the 2-Bus allows engineers to enjoy the true colors of any chosen outboard gear without clouding the issue with the summing path. The 2-Bus is offered in two models, the original 2-rack space Dangerous 2-Bus with XLR inputs and the 1-rack space Dangerous 2-Bus LT with D-Sub inputs.

The Dangerous Monitor ST is the centerpiece of the most flexible monitor control platform available. ST is a fully expandable remote control-based monitor controller and source switcher with four inputs and speaker switcher for 3-pairs of speakers and subwoofer, and includes integrated cue and talkback systems, with an onboard headphone power amplifier, all in one rack space. With the cat-5 connected remote control unit, included with the Monitor ST, engineers can configure and control an entire system from the comfort of the studio’s sweet spot. Studios working in stereo can start with the Monitor ST and later expand to surround sound control for film and TV work by adding the SR expansion unit with no equipment redundancy or obsolescence.

About Dangerous Music, Inc.
Dangerous Music, Inc. designs and builds products that are indispensable to any DAW-based recording environment. Dangerous Music electronics designer Chris Muth has spent over 20 years working in and designing custom equipment for top recording and mastering studios. Muth and company founder Bob Muller pioneered the concept of the dedicated analog summing buss for digital audio workstations with the Dangerous 2-Bus in 2001. Today the company offers a wide range of products for recording, mastering, mixing and post-production facilities, all designed and built with mastering-quality standards and a practical aesthetic. Key products include the Dangerous 2-Bus and 2-Bus LT, Dangerous Monitor ST-SR and its Additional Switching System expansion units, Dangerous D-Box, Dangerous Master, Dangerous S&M, Dangerous Monitor and Dangerous MQ.
For more information visit http://www.dangerousmusic.com
phone 607-965-8011
or email: info@dangerousmusic.com

All trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
*Utility Muffin Research Kitchen - Zappa Studio

- Boswell

Dweezil Zappa Wins Grammy® and Orders AMD Room Service

Photo credit: Michael Mesker

Dweezil Zappa just won a Grammy® Award recently for Best Rock Instrumental. Tell us about how you’re involved in his work.

I met Dweezil Zappa a number of years ago at an AES convention in LA. I’ve been deeply interested in his father’s music since grade school. Therefore, it was an extreme honor to meet Dweezil and his mother Gail. Dweezil was introduced to me because of his plans to use AMD technology not only to produce his own music, but to take some of his father’s existing stuff from the famous Zappa vault and put those historically important tapes into the digital domain. The vault activity is under the direction of Gail Zappa. Dweezil began using AMD workstations as a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) with our 32-bit technology back in 2002. Since then, the relationship has progressed to where Dweezil is using our very latest quad-core processors and ATI graphics on our Fusion platforms at the legendary UMRK (Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) studio founded by his father. Dweezil embarked on the worldwide Zappa Plays Zappa tour in 2007 and that tour has continued into 2009 with several months break here and there. He is using AMD DAWs to record these live shows. The popularity and success of this tour has reaffirmed the global demand for and interest in Frank Zappa’s music. I believe a great deal of the tour’s longevity is attributed to Dweezil’s precise interpretation of his father’s catalog as well as his selection of the current ZPZ lineup. Dweezil is using AMD based Fusion DAWs to mix and master these shows while he’s out on the road and the fans are responding very favorably! These DAWs were manufactured by our excellent friends and partners at PCAudioLabs (www.pcaudiolabs.com).

This new AMD addition to the Dweezil Zappa workflow is called the “Room Service Rig” because it is sometimes operated from a hotel room after a show, or possibly on the bus in between shows. We partnered up with our friends over at Dangerous Music (www.dangerousmusic.com) to make the "Room Service Rig" happen. Dweezil records the shows live, then mixes, masters, and uploads those shows within a few months after a live performance. Dweezil went from zero to sixty on the PC over the course of about 5 months and has really amazed me personally in his ability not to lose focus on the music and falling into a technology morass. The chief role of my team at AMD is to work directly with the artist to insure AMD based technology arrives as a solution and not just benchmark or some other nerd synthetic seal of approval. The technology culture left to its own devices actually has the ability to push or steer the artist out of his/her aesthetic pursuits and lead them down an endless technology highway that ends in the nerd cul-de-sac of disappointment. This process transforms the artist into a technologist with his/her aesthetic oftentimes completely destroyed. This is Global Nerding.

Dweezil just won a Grammy® for Peaches En Regalia, which is a live recording of one of Frank Zappa’s most well known compositions. He is someone who understands that technological solutions should be balanced perfectly with the artist’s performance capability. That’s the way we like to approach all of our artists: we try to balance artistic performance with production power. It’s a different way of looking at technology. We measure success based upon what the artist is able to achieve and not just on some nerd technology attribute. Dweezil’s Grammy® is an example of that principle in action. The Digital Media and Entertainment team at AMD has filmed a couple of shows for Dweezil which we’re working on for several DVDs of live ZPZ material. This is an example of how the AMD Digital Media and Entertainment team engages with the artist. We’re out there with them on tour many times testing our technology on the firing line in terms of video, audio, pre-production, and post production. Everyone on my team is an artist first and foremost. We take the customers perspective because we are all actually customers ourselves. We all use AMD technology in our own productions. This is the Fusion culture at AMD.

- Boswell