The Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio held its 25th Annual TEC Awards Oct. 10, during AES 2009. Nearly 500 audio industry professionals turned out for the event, which was held at the Javits Convention Center. The awards were highlighted by a tribute to the late music icon Les Paul.
Three companies walked away with two awards in the technical achievement categories. Avid Digidesign won for both the ProTools 8 (in the workstation technology category) and Venue Mix Rack System (sound reinforcement console). Solid State Logic scooped up awards for its SSL Matrix (small-format console) and the AWS 900+ SE (large-format console). In addition, Universal Audio won with both the 710 Twin-Finity (microphone preamplifier) and UAD-2 Quad (signal processing/hardware).
In the microphone categories, perennial winner Neumann took the studio category with the TLM 67, while DPA Microphones won its first-ever TEC Award for its Model 4099 in sound reinforcement. At the other end of the signal chain, Genelec won the studio monitor category for its 6010/5040 desktop audio system, while Meyer Sound took the honors in sound reinforcement loudspeakers for its new UPQ-1P. The award for wireless technology honored the Shure UR1-M micro-body pack, iZotope for the Ozone 4 Mastering Suite (signal processing/software) and Nagra for the Nagra VI (recording devices). Finally, the ancillary products category was won by Manley Labs for its Backbone, a mastering insert switcher that provides precise control of up to eight pieces of outboard gear.
In the creative achievement categories, the James Taylor special “One Man Band” was honored for TV sound; the film “The Dark Knight” won for film sound. The designers of Santa Barbara’s playback recording studio took the award for studio design.
This year’s TEC Awards “big birthday” was hosted by industry veteran Chris Stone, founder of Record Plant and co-founder of S.P.A.R.S. The ceremony featured a lineup of presenters including John Storyk of Walters-Storyk Design Group and TEC Hall of Fame members remote engineer David Hewitt; engineer/producer Eddie Kramer; engineer, producer and technologist George Massenburg; and producer/engineer Phil Ramone.
