photo caption: Nickelback is just one of the touring bands employing CRAS grads

Our MRPII grads have done very well for themselves. The list of CRAS attendees below have gone on to their internships and then been hired to work on major tours or with live sound companies.

On Tour
Jeremy White, PA Tech - Aerosmith, Snoop Dogg, Nickelback
Wayne Newton, FOH engineer - Aerosmith, Snoop Dogg, Nickelback
Alex Rotelle, PA Tech - Aerosmith, Snoop Dogg, Nickelback
Nathan Lettus, Crew Chief/V-DOSC engineer - Chicago
Matt Strasser, PA Tech - Chicago
Armando Montalvo, PA Tech - Nickelback

Working at PRG Las Vegas
Adam Parrish - Operations Mgr.
Cory Harrington - Shop Mgr.
Mitch Sorenson - Assistant Shop Mgr.
Marian Mast - Inbound/Outbound Asset Coordinator
Bruce Kilmer - Speaker Quality Control

Congrats to all of you, keep up the good work

CRAS Grad Eddie Mapp runs FOH audio for Evanscence

photo caption: Andrew Mayer (right) and Paragon Studios’ crew pose with Nicole Kidman

Andrew Mayer officially graduated from the CRAS in March of 08, but even so, in a few short months he’s racked up some notable successes in his new home city of Nashville. For starters, he was hired on at Paragon Studios, one of Music City’s hottest spots for post and music production. The facility recently recorded Nicole Kidman’s voiceovers for the movie Australia. Andrew also received his first credit for assisting on Sugarland’s newest release Love on the Inside.

photo caption: Jordan Gresham at ARU’s ICON console

Recent CRAS grad Jordan Gresham has been working with some interesting clients at ARU (Audio Recording Unlimited) in Chicago. She recently logged hours assisting on voiceovers for Pixar’s Toy Story 3, Guiliana Rancic from E! Daily News, and a Jerry Springer voiceover for America’s Got Talent.

Jordan is excited that she’s had such great opportunities in such a short time. “Just the chance to get to work with Pixar this early on was unbelievable.” she said. “I didn’t really realize that they thought of me as the assistant engineer until the day before the last session we had when the script editor called the studio and asked for Jordan, the assistant engineer. It was sooo cool to hear our receptionist say ‘Jordan you have a call on line 1 from PIXAR!!’ They put me in charge of making sure Joan Cusack’s contract was given to the producer first thing in the morning, and they entrusted me with it overnight! So, like the big dork I am, I had to keep the fax cover sheet from Pixar as a souvenir, since it was addressed to me, and they had written a little note thanking me for all my help on this project.”

We recently heard from CRAS grad Jonathan Pendergrass who started his career in LA. Here’s a note from him outlining where he’s going in the world of big city music.

“After finishing classes at the Conservatory, I left for L.A. and started an internship with 7 Pin Studios (formerly Tweakhead Productions). During this time, I had begun to work with a hip-hop artist in L.A. and he had purchased several of my pieces. After working for two weeks with Allison Wright Clark, the awesome music/score supervisor at 7 Pin, she sent me to S3 Music and Sound, a publishing company in West L.A. There I began work uploading, categorizing, and organizing their music library of about 1600 songs. S3 composes all the music for Robot Chicken, a few MTV reality shows, and licenses its library music for SiTV. As a composer myself, I have been given the opportunity to upload my own pieces into their library. I met another composer named Dennis Smith at S3 during a recording session, and I worked for him briefly delivering hard drives around L.A. I met several composers and editors on these runs and that networking brought me invaluable contacts and real world information. Currently, I am pitching their library to film, TV, and video game companies (a couple of bites here and there but here’s hoping). I begin recording next week at a home studio called Fantastic Traccz and it is very likely that I will record and engineer their upcoming albums. I also met another hip-hop artist in my apartment complex and I start recording his album later on in the day. There seems to be no end to the work you can do in this city as long as you aggressively look for it. Go Conservatory!”

CRAS grad Ariel Gross parlayed his CRAS education into a full-time gig at Volition Inc. He is now able to focus his skills on creating innovative audio for games. He has composed soundtracks to and created sound effects for over ten published games, and the list grows daily. In his spare time, he manages an IDM record label and writes lots of funky music. The CRAS offers a game audio program based on the Wwise audio pipeline solution. Wwise allows a programmer to work within a game audio team for a company like Volition, or act as an independent content provider offering freelance services for a range of clients.

photo caption: l to r, Justin Francis, Jerad Thompson, Nathan Jones and Joe Davis

Four CRAS students recently played a major role in making Mix Magazine’s Nashville event come off successfully. The two-day event was held at Sound Check in in Nashville and was sponsored by Apple, Digidesign, Meyer Sound, SSL, Muse Research and more. Each manufacturer had a demo room while Mix’s room hosted panels featuring some of the top names in audio. Grammy winning engineers, artists and producers like Tony Brown, Lee Ann Womack, Chuck Ainlay, Jeff Balding and Bob Bullock were among the participants discussing their latest projects, state of the industry and recording/mixing tips and techniques. The Mix Army of four, pictured above, not only helped Event coordinator Donny Emerick set up and tear down the venue, but also ran audio, video and registration at the venue.

photo caption: l to r, Live Sound instructor Keith Morris, Adam Parrish and Internship coordinator Jordan Kilmer

Recently, we wrote about Nick Simonds, a 2006 student who runs FOH at the Hard Rock in Vegas. Less than a week later, we had a visit from Adam Parrish, another 2006 grad who is the Operations Manager at PRG Audio, also located in Vegas. Adam runs day to day operations at the mega-audio company and has recently put gear out on tour with Matchbox 20, The Cure and Three Days Grace. PRG is also supplying the audio for American Idol creator Simon Fuller’s upcoming wedding in Napa. Adam talked to students during the day as they came in and out of classes and also hosted an evening guest lecture to talk about working in the live sound industry.

Nick Simonds has taken the express elevator to the top of his career. He graduated in March of 2006 and moved on to his internship then ended up at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas where he currently holds the position as Front of House Audio Engineer. In the two short years Nick has been out of school, he has mixed B.B. King, (həd) p.e., Twista and Snoop Dogg and has worked with a score of other bands supporting their crew. The Hard Rock is currently under expansion, building a new tower and live venue that will double the capacity of the current facility. Nick is on the ground floor of this endeavor finding gear for the new room.

photo caption: clockwise, Jon Hanson (Empirical Labs), Brenton Trotter (Stash Picks), Afton Hefley (Goblynz Groove Media), Eric Boyer (Presonus) and Ben Widmer (TC Electronic)

The recent annual Winter NAMM show in Anaheim California displayed the latest gear in music and audio to over 88,000 registrants. The show is a magnet for musical celebrities, manufacturers, musicians, recording engineers, producers and more. Conservatory staff visited the show and ran into a bevy of grads working the show for a variety of manufacturers.