IoSR Blog : 01 January 2017
Tonmeister Review of 2016
January
Tonmeisters work on classic new year TV including Silent Witness (music composer: Sheridan Tongue), Midsomer Murders (dubbing mixer: Richard Straker) and Mr. Selfridge (dubbing mixer: Richard Davey).
February
Tonmeisters win three awards from the Music Producers Guild: Best Producer (Charlie Andrew), Best Engineer (Olga Fitzroy), and Breakthrough Engineer (Brett Cox).
March
Sadly, friend of the Tonmeister course and honorary graduate George Martin passes away. George visited regularly as part of his role as President of the Association of Professional Recording Services, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University in 2008.
April
We start to collate examples of student work on our YouTube channel.
May
Radiohead release A Moon Shaped Pool, engineered by Tonmeister graduate Sam Petts-Davies.
June
Tonmeisters are presented with awards from a wide range of audio experts and companies.
July
The University hosts the Audio Engineering Society International Conference on Sound Field Control. This involves around 90 participants from many countries around the world, with demonstrations using over 100 loudspeakers in the Institute of Sound Recording studios and listening room.
August
Laura Marling hosts a series of podcasts that ask why few women work in audio. The series includes interviews with a range of women who work in music and audio, asking how they got into their current roles and how they feel about working in a predominantly male industry. One of the interviews is with award-winning engineer and Tonmeister graduate Olga Fitzroy. They talk about balancing having a family with a career as a sound engineer, and whether women hear differently than men.
September
An amazing 19 albums that Tonmeisters had worked on were nominated for Gramophone awards. These nominations cover almost the whole range of categories: every category apart from one had an album partly created by a Surrey Tonmeister.
October
Tonmeisters work on the newly-released film , a documentary about the band Oasis. Tonmeister graduate Rael Jones composed the original music for the score, which was recorded and mixed by Tonmeister graduate Joe Rubel. The whole movie sound was mixed by re-recording mixer (and Tonmeister graduate) Richard Davey.
November
Over the year our 22.2 loudspeaker setup in the listening room is featured in Audio Media and Resolution magazines, and the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society.
December
Final year students have been telling us some of the highlights of their placement year jobs working in all areas of the audio industry. These have included:
- Recording the world's most renowned orchestras including The Royal Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic
- Working on many large scale broadcasts including the Brit Awards and The BBC Music Awards
- Touring North America with Peter Gabriel and Sting
- Developing programs for virtual reality
- Working on the Channel 4 Rio Paralympics advert with the most inspiring musicians imaginable
- Standing a metre away from the orchestra as they played the first cue from Spectre
- Designing parts of products that are currently on the market
- Working for seven weeks in Mallorca as a sound operator on Love Island
by Russell Mason