BNB Productions Adds Masterpiece To New Studio Facility

Brian Moritz (left) and Bryan Mitchell (right) flanking their new Legendary Audio Masterpiece

NEWARK, Illinois - May 2005 -- Producer/engineer Bryan Mitchell and fellow native Chicago producer/engineer/musician Brian Moritz have teamed up to form BNB Productions, Inc., a new company dedicated to artist development, jingle and soundtrack creation, and audio/video recording services. As part of the partnership, the duo is currently in the process of converting a 4,200-square-foot building 60 miles southwest of the Windy City into a three-studio facility that will serve as its primary headquarters when it opens in mid-July.

Although much of the recording and mastering gear going into the new studio complex is from their own equipment arsenals — including a 60-channel Audient ASP8024 console, Digidesign Pro Tools|HD system, Sony APR24 and Ampex ATR-102 tape machines and copious quantities of classic outboard mic preamps, compressors and processing — the two BNB principals recently chose to purchase a new Legendary Audio Masterpiece boasting an all-Rupert Neve circuit design.

Mitchell recalls, "I had read about the Masterpiece’s AES launch in one of the industry magazines, was intrigued, and called up Billy Stull at the company to see if I could try one out. At the time, I was working with a local rock band called Monkey Paw that had previously done an album with Steve Albini. The band wanted to salvage a few tunes off of the half-inch reels from those sessions and add them to some new recordings that I had done for them. My initial task for the Masterpiece was to create an overall sheen that would both preserve the characteristics that are unique to Steve’s work and ensure that our two recordings were complimentary. The Masterpiece did a magnificent job, becoming that critical audio link."

Although Mitchell’s first use of the Legendary Audio product was, indeed, for mastering, he believes that the product is too versatile to be strictly dubbed a ‘mastering system’. "There are so many things that can be done with this box; you can really get lost in it," he says. "Aside from mastering with it, I’ve both tracked and mixed through it and found that whatever I use it on — even simply running signals through its transformers with barely any tweaking — sounds incredible. It can completely heal the harshness of digital sources. By making a few knob adjustments, you can give new character to the sound. The sonic landscape of anything going through this product just explodes!

"The level of control on this box is pretty staggering, too. EQ adjustments can be made in super-precise quarter-decibel increments. Sometimes it’s just that tiny little edge that makes all the difference.

"I really take my hat off to Billy and Rupert. The Masterpiece continues to blow away anybody that’s thinking solely in the digital realm. Before we took delivery of the product, I told my partner, Brian, that we had to own at least one more of Mr. Neve’s designs because his audio genius has made the rock and roll world sound the way it does. Billy’s expertise and insight compliments this signal path by creating unbelievable mastering flexibility, allowing the user to tackle even the toughest mastering problem. Even from the very first moment we started pumping two-track material through it, I knew that it wasn’t going back to Texas — no matter how hard Billy tried to get it back. The Masterpiece greatly enhances what we’re doing. When the day comes that Brian is mixing something and I’m mastering something else, there’s probably going to be a wrestling match over who gets to use it. We might just have to get another one."

A powerful tool for mastering, mixing, broadcast, restoration or live sound, the Masterpiece is a highly comprehensive and unique two-channel analog audio processing system. The product’s 6U chassis is equipped with four-pairs of vertically-oriented filter modules that are aesthetically reminiscent of vintage Neve designs and collectively offer a wide palette of sonic amenities, including precision peak and shelving equalizers, a full-featured dynamics section, highly authentic tape texture (thanks to a real tape drive circuit), incremental phase rotation, various classic audio functions and more.

The Masterpiece empowers the audio engineer to enhance, restructure, or repair stereo audio, be it digital or analog. Ambience can be increased or decreased, vocals brought forward or back, bass tightened and maximized, digital harshness made smooth and warm, offending frequencies tamed, sonic spectrum improved, gain maximized, or just overall sonic enhancement added to create a competitive, professional product.

Over the past year, Mitchell and Moritz have been working with the Chicago-based band Balance on its second release. The album features the virtuosic rhythm section talents of bassist Dave LaRue (Dixie Dregs, Steve Morse Band) and drummer Rod Morgenstein (Dixie Dregs, Winger) and will be available this August via www.balanceweb.com.

For more information on BNB Productions, Inc., visit www.balanceweb.com/bnb.html.