LITTLE FERRY, NEW JERSEY, June 3, 2005 -Eventide announced today that its Anthology plug-in bundle is now an indispensable part of the legendary Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California.
Fantasy Studios, the premiere recording and production studio in Berkeley for a quarter of a century, has long been a destination for musicians, as well as film, and broadcast productions. Its high traffic and lofty client roster keep its four studios in heavy use, requiring the facility to select only the highest quality, most reliable equipment.
Stephen Hart, Fantasy Studios' Chief Engineer, is no stranger to Eventide, having used its classic hardware for decades. With many of the Eventide boxes already in-house, he saw little need for the plug-ins until he downloaded the demo from the Eventide web site.
"At first, I didn't feel compelled to go out and purchase the Eventide line of plug-ins for our Pro-Tools systems," said Hart. "Why should I? My collection of Eventide hardware looks like a museum. But, after trying out some of the Harmonizer pitch shifters, and the Omnipressor in my HD rig, I had to admit the plug-ins sound great. If you are into some twisted reality, the H3000 Band Delays, and Octavox will give you a good serving."
The Anthology bundle compiles over three decades worth of legendary technologies into one all-inclusive, simple and affordable package for Pro Tools TDM. Included in the Anthology bundle are H3000 Band Delays™, the just released H3000 Factory™ plug-in, all five plug-ins from the Clockworks Legacy™ bundle, and two plug-ins based on Eventide's top-of-the-line Orville™ processor, Reverb and Octavox.
"I used some of these plug-ins on the Grizzly Man score (Werner Herzog's new documentary) with artist Richard Thompson," said Hart, "and it promptly took home a prize from the Sundance Film Festival. I'm sure the outstanding score had something to do with that."
Hart recently teamed up with Chris Forrest of Studio Guapo in San Francisco to restore the audio and remix the soundtrack of Wattstax, the classic 70s concert film, featuring Issac Hayes, the Staple Singers, the Barkays and many more, for Warner Home Video. "Omnipressor was an invaluable piece of the puzzle that helped keep that classic sound but in a DAW environment," noted Hart. "Chris, buried deep in the post world, is using the Eventide Reverb plug-in for matching room ambience as he is prepping and mixing ADR and production dialogue. He says it rocks."
Fantasy is currently busy with Santana's new album, a stream of indie bands, restoration and remixing of classic Otis Redding concerts, ADR/Foley, and scoring dates for several features and documentarie films as well as primetime television productions, such as "Alias."
"Fantasy is truly one of the handful of great studios in the US. They opened their doors the same year we did, back in 1971," said Ray Maxwell, Eventide vice president of sales and marketing. "Fantasy has an incredible vibe and is meticulously maintained and operated by an outstanding staff led by Stephen Hart. They have just about every vintage piece of hardware known to man, so we're happy they've added our plug-ins to their arsenal."
Fantasy Studios opened in 1971 as an in-house studio for Fantasy Records, which was home to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck, and Chet Baker. The label flourished and expanded while the studio became one of the world's premiere recording facilities. In 1981, the studio added a new state-of-the-art room, retrofitted the existing rooms, and went public. Large rooms and live echo chambers combined with a huge mic and outboard gear collection define Fantasy as one of the classic American facilities. Santana, Aerosmith, Journey , , Bobby McFerrin, Huey Lewis and the News, MC Hammer, Joe Satriani, Green Day, and many more have been long-term clients.
The Concord Music Group, Inc., of Beverly Hills, recently purchased Fantasy Records and Fantasy Studios. New ownership has only made the Fantasy name stronger. Hart comments, "Who isn't worried about your company changing hands? But in our case, it's turned into a very positive experience. Concord Music Group won eight Grammies this year for its Ray Charles Genius Loves Company album and another one for Ozomatli. Not bad at all!"
A 25-year music industry veteran, Stephen Hart has been chief engineer at Fantasy for the past five years. Outside of a couple years as staff engineer at the Record Plant, he spent much of his career freelancing on an international level. Overseas clients took him to Milan, London, Paris, Budapest, Zurich, Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei regularly for more than a decade. His credits include such legendary artists as Santana, David Bowie, Patti Austin, Oscar Peterson, Neville Brothers, MC Hammer, The White Stripes, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Albert King. He has also worked with visionary producers Tom Dowd, Steve Cropper, and Sir George Martin. All in all, his credits account for roughly 40 million unit sales. In addition to music mixing, Hart's skills include scoring, Foley and ADR. Films include Titanic, Amadeus, Dead Poet's Society, Finding Forester, Boogie Nights and many more.
Founded in 1971 in New York City, Eventide is a leading developer and manufacturer of digital audio processing products for recording, broadcast, and live performance. Headquartered in Little Ferry, NJ, Eventide invented the H949, the first Harmonizer® effects processor in 1975, and introduced the H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer effects processor in 1988. Visit Eventide on the Web at www.eventide.com.
Eventide, Omnipressor, and Harmonizer are registered trademarks; H3000 Factory, H3000 Band Delays, Clockworks Legacy, Orville, and Octavox are trademarks of Eventide Inc.
Digidesign and Pro Tools are trademarks of Digidesign, a division of Avid Technology, names and logos are used with permission.