Mar 1, 1999 12:00 PM, MIX STAFF

EXPOLATINA IN MIAMI Intertec Publishing, a PRIMEDIA Company, and Mix en Espanol will sponsor ExpoLatina, a trade show and educational conference for Spanish-speaking audio, video and lighting/staging professionals from both Latin America and the United States. The new venture, which will be held May 5-7 at the Miami Beach Convention Center, promises to further satisy the growing information needs of the huge Latin American market, covered in-depth the past five years by Mix-Edicion en Espanol. The audio seminar portion of the event-consisting of a dozen presentations over three days-is being developed by Mix's director of special projects and former publisher, Hillel Resner.

"The 'Sound Track' at ExpoLatina offers something for just about everyone," Resner says. "We've brought together some of the industry's most knowledgeable people to address a variety of topics, from microphone techniques and DSP to studio design and audio for large outdoor events. In addition, we've enlisted several top manufacturers who do a lot of business in Latin America to both demonstrate products and present seminars on a number of critical topics."

A highlight of ExpoLatina, which is being produced by the same group that stages Lighting Dimensions International, will be the "Music Producers Forum," presented by the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (LARAS). An offshoot of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, which presents the Grammy Awards, LARAS was founded in 1997 to represent the Latin music community. The Music Producers Forum will bring together some of the biggest names in Latin music production to discuss recording techniques and play samples of their work.

For more information or for registration materials, call 303/220-0600; fax 913/967-1900; or visit the Web site at www.etecnyc.net.

GENUINE MUSIC COALITION Liquid Audio, along with 48 record labels, software, hardware and MP3 vendors, rights societies, music retailers, music content Web sites, Web development companies, broadband providers, consultants, artists and producers, announced the formation of the Genuine Music Coalition. The mission statement of the coalition is to use the new "Genuine Music" open standard enhancements to digital music formats to provide digital authentication of the origin and ownership of music.

"Liquid Audio is playing a leadership role in helping the industry preserve the quality and authenticity of music distributed on the Internet and helping create a market for legitimate content," said Gerry Kearby, CEO of Liquid Audio.

Members will display a new "Genuine Music" mark logo in every piece of legitimately encoded content sold or freely distributed on the Internet. This will allow consumers to distinguish between pirated and legitimate content.

This effort will be aligned with the efforts of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) and is not intended to be a substitute for the security to be provided by SDMI.

For further information, including a list of participating companies, visit www.liquidaudio.com/press/.

CHRIS STONE EXITS MPGA Music Producer's Guild of the Americas executive director Chris Stone has decided to step down after announcing that the guild has achieved its initial goals ahead of schedule. The MPGA has gained 160 members and 32 corporate sponsors in 18 months.

"When MPGA founder Ed Cherney approached me in August of 1997, and asked me to help him make the MPGA a reality, I told him I thought it would take until the millennium to accomplish these goals," says Stone. "We had no idea what excitement we would generate in the audio engineer/music producer community and among the leading pro audio manufacturers. It has been simply phenomenal."

Stone suspended his active role as executive director on February 1.

C.A.S. HONORS CANTAMESSA Production sound mixer Gene S. Cantamessa was selected by the Cinema Audio Society to receive its Career Achievement Award. The award is given to members of the sound community who have made an outstanding contribution to the craft of sound mixing.

Cantamessa's career spans five decades; he's received three C.A.S. nominations, seven Oscar nominations, three Lyra nominations and Emmy nominations. He received an Oscar for E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Other credits include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blazing Saddles and The Big Chill.

MASTERLAB OPENS IN ORLANDO Former Marilyn Manson drummer and founding member Lucas, and business partner Trace, "International Mastering Whiz Kid," have opened a new mastering facility in Orlando, Fla.

The five-room complex is devoted to premastering, product assembly, disc quality control, mastering and replication of all-format CDs and DVDs. The A room at the complex features a 24-bit/96kHz Sonic Solutions system. The duo announced plans to open facilities in New York and Los Angeles later this year. More information is available at www.masterlab.com.

ALLEN SIDES SELLS THREE ROOMS Allen Sides, owner of ten Ocean Way recording rooms in L.A. and Nashville, has sold three rooms and the building at 6000 Sunset Blvd. The rooms were purchased by Cello Studios, LLC, and were renamed Cello Studios. The facility will be under the direction of producer John Porter.

Sides will continue to operate Ocean Way studios at 6050 Sunset, along with the two rooms at Ocean Way/Record One in L.A. and the three studios of Ocean Way/Nashville.

UPCOMING SHOWS NAB99 takes place in Las Vegas April 17-22. For registration and other information visit www.nab.org/conventions/ or call 732/544-2888 for fax-on-demand.

The 106th AES convention takes place at the MOC Center, Munich, Germany, from May 8-11. Visit www.aes.org/events/106 for updates.

TEC AWARDS PROCEEDS DISTRIBUTED, SITE CHOSEN FOR '99 The Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio has announced the distribution of proceeds from the 1998 Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards, held last September in San Francisco. A total of $31,500 was given to charities and organizations involved in hearing protection awareness and scholarship programs for audio students. Fifty percent of the proceeds were distributed to the Hearing Is Priceless campaign (co-founded by the House Ear Institute and Mix magazine).

The Mix Foundation also announced that the 15th Annual TEC Awards will be held Saturday, September 25, at the Marriott Marquis in New York City and promise to be the biggest TEC Awards yet.

For ticket and sponsorship information, contact Karen Dunn at (925) 939-6149 or KarenTEC@aol.com.

STUDIOPRO99 PANELISTS SET StudioPro99, to be presented by Mix on June 14-15 at the Universal City Hilton in Los Angeles, has announced a stellar lineup of panelists. Subtitled "Emerging Technologies and the Future of Audio Production," the conference will feature more than 50 noted industry figures addressing technical and business topics.

Among those confirmed are producers and engineers Rob Cavallo, Don Gehman, Sylvia Massy, Dave Reitzas and Al Schmitt; mastering engineers Dave Collins and Steve Hall; studio designers George Augspurger, Peter Gruneisen, Chris Pelonis and Vincent Van Haaff; film re-recording mixers Ted Hall, Paul Massey and Shawn Murphy; and numerous other experts in a host of specialized fields.

For a StudioPro99 brochure, call Daniela Barone at 510/653-3307, or email daniela_barone@intertec.com. Please include your name, address and phone number.

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