Support Specialist Dave Sheffield

Employee Feature: Support Specialist Dave Sheffield

What is your official job title at UA?
My official job title here at UA is Mac/PC Support Specialist.

Where are you from?
I was born in Santa Clara and have lived in San Jose most of my life, with a short stint a few years ago in San Diego. I currently live in Campbell, but I am about to make the move to Santa Cruz.

"Let me tell you, when you're the only guy who knows how to operate all the stuff and you're playing at the same time in some little club, things can get kind of hectic."

How long have you worked at UA?
I've worked at UA since April of '06, so a bit under a year.

What did you do before you worked at UA?
Before I worked at UA, I worked at a pretty cool mom-and-pop music shop in the pro sound department, selling studio recording systems, and doing some club, bar, and church sound-system design and installation. Before that (during the dot-com boom), I worked in IT for two biotech companies in Palo Alto.

Do you like to play music?
I started taking piano lessons in about fifth grade, and piano has always been a part of my life in some shape or form. I remember the first time I played a synth-it was some $30 Casio in some department store-ever since then, almost every Christmas I expressed a very strong desire for a synth of some kind (most of the time driving my parents mad when they tried to get me something else).

What do you play? Are you in a band?
Piano is my main instrument, and then I play a bit of guitar and a small bit of drums. I normally work in a producer-type collaboration, with female vocalists for the most part, although I did spend about two years in a band in San Diego. The band was kind of like an Evanescence/Linkin Park type thing, with most of the tracks being done in the studio and then reproduced live onstage. Let me tell you, when you're the only guy who knows how to operate all the stuff and you're playing at the same time in some little club, things can get kind of hectic, so for now I'm back on the just in the studio kind of thing.

What do you like about your job?
There's a lot to like about working at UA. For the most part everyone here is a musician of some kind, and all of us love the gear the company makes. Add that to the fact that most of the people we correspond with in support spend most of their free time recording-and it's always nice to get an engineer thrown in there every so often who works with an artist that as a musician you are really into.

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Upcoming Events . . .

The NAMM Show
Universal Audio will have a larger booth and a new location at this year's NAMM Show. We've got more big surprises for you, so please visit us at booth #7003!

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News & Shmooze . . .

UA Studio Onscreen DVD Released The UA Studio Onscreen DVD Volume 1 gives the novice to intermediate audio engineer a view into the entire process of creating, recording, and mastering a song. We follow the artists from a project studio preproduction session, into a professional studio recording session, then finally to mastering. Watch the trailer in the UA Web Store.

Dance-a-Thon Champions: UA Employees Sierra Dunton, Erica McDaniel and Tracy Geier, and Tracy's boyfriend Steve

UA-Sponsored "Jalapeno Poppers" Win Charity Dance-a-Thon
It was the Third Annual Baile-thon to raise money for the Consuelo Buitrago Health Clinic in Mangua, Nicaragua. The health clinic provides care for thousands of women and children as well as a living wage to health workers there. They have sanitation and vaccination programs as well as public health training and training of health brigadistas. They are still accepting donations, which can be made on the website.

The event was held on Saturday, November 4, from noon until 8PM. Every hour they brought in a different dance instructor to teach a new dance. We danced hip-hop, swing, African, capoeira, salsa rueda, Irish, Senegalese and country western. Our UA-sponsored team, The Jalapeno Poppers, which consisted of Sales Coordinator Sierra Dunton, Director of Sales Erica McDaniel, Accounting Admin Tracy Geier and her boyfriend Steve Padilla, won first place with three of our four members having danced the full 8 hours. Luckily for us the prizes we won were all therapeutic to help us recover from our "Solid Gold" aspirations.

Music Publishers Say Kazaa Deal Reached
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The music publishing industry reached a tentative deal with operators of the Kazaa file-sharing network over claims of copyright infringement, an industry group said.

Publishers pursuing a class-action suit against Kazaa informed U.S. District Court on Monday that the peer-to-peer network had agreed to pay "a substantial sum" under the agreement, the National Music Publishers' Association said in a statement.

The amount of the settlement was not disclosed. It is subject to final approval by the association board.

More - USA Today

Two Sued for Downloading over 1,000 Songs
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Patricia Santangelo wouldn't concede in her fight with record companies that accused her of pirating songs over the Internet. Now the companies are hoping for an easier tussle against her kids. Five record companies, represented by the Recording Industry Association of America, filed a lawsuit in federal court in White Plains on Wednesday against Santangelo's son and daughter.

It said Michelle Santangelo, 20, has acknowledged downloading songs on the family computer and that her brother, Robert, 16, had been implicated in statements his best friend made. It accuses the two of downloading and distributing over 1,000 songs, including Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) by The Offspring, MMMBop by Hanson and Beat It by Michael Jackson.

More - USA Today

Hacker Claims to Have Cracked iPod Restrictions
SAN JOSE, California (AP) - A hacker known for cracking the copy-protection technology in DVDs claims to have unlocked the playback restrictions of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and iTunes music products and plans to license his code to others.

The move by Jon Lech Johansen, also known as "DVD Jon," could pit the 22-year-old against Apple's lawyers, experts say, but if successful could free users from some restrictions Apple and its rivals place on digital music.

More - CNN.com

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Tech Talk . . .

Sonar Error 21 Fix Completed
The Cakewalk VST Adapter fixes are now out of beta and available in the latest Cakewalk VST Adapter release, for Sonar version 5 and below. The update is included in Sonar 6.

Universal Mac Drivers for UAD
Mac users, please note: the 4.5 release of the UAD Software now has "Universal" status, and is fully compatible with all Intel-based Macs.

x64 Windows Drivers
UA Engineers are hard at work on x64 drivers for the Windows platform. Please watch this space and the uaudio.com homepage for more information on a preview release.

Intel 925 Motherboard Chipset with UAD-1e PCI Express Card
We are investigating an issue with the UAD-1e PCIe card installed on PC motherboards based on the discontinued Intel 925 chipsets. Users of these systems may be experiencing problems during installation or system boot. We hope to have a solution for this issue soon. This issue does not affect any other Intel motherboard chipsets, and does not affect the UAD-1 PCI card.

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Producer Gossip . . .

Actor Ving Rhames with Producer/Engineer/Musician Ted Perlman

Ted Perlman Can't Be Without His 1081 Plug-In
Grammy winning producer/engineer/guitarist Ted Perlman can't be without his UA/Neve 1081 plug-in. Ted is a big UA fan, and was gracious enough to write this unsolicited e-mail:

"The new Neve 1081 is brilliant! I'm working on music for the new Adam Sandler movie Chuck & Larry, and it's become my EQ of choice for all the guitars and background vocals. Lance Bass from *NSYNC was in here recording his vocal parts. Sandler has even cast me as the bandleader-my big-screen debut!

"The 1081 is now part of the mixes for the movie and I don't want to be without it. It is as amazing as the 1073 and the 33609. Congratulations!

"I also just worked on two songs for Phil Ramone, Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach. I used the 1081 on one of my guitar solos. Normally I wouldn't send the tracks out with any effects, but that EQ sounded so good that I rendered the audio though it. Ramone called me up and said he loved the guitar solo and how killer it sounded. I'm a pretty fair guitarist, but that EQ made me sound 'mo better.' :-)

"Thanks again for providing me with such wonderful tools to help take my recordings to a higher level!"

Steven Miller Chooses 8110 for Recording the Dave Mathews Band Engineer Steven Miller, not to be confused with Steve "Fly Like an Eagle" Miller, recently acquired a Universal Audio 8110 Precision Mic Preamplifier to use on his latest project-recording the Dave Mathews Band. Steven presented at the 2006 Tech Awards, where he got the opportunity to pose with his superstar namesake, Steve Miller. Steve Miller received the Les Paul award at the show.

Steven Miller poses with Steve Miller after the 2006 Tech Awards

 

Gareth Jones Chooses 6176 for New Erasure Album Superstar Producer and Engineer Gareth Jones spent the month of October in an ocean-front house in Maine producing the new Erasure album with Vince Clarke and Andy Bell. He kept a lively diary of the process on his blog. Halfway through they ran out and bought a new 6176 to complete the setup. "The 6176 had already been spoken of very highly by a couple of colleagues," wrote Jones. "I had not heard one, but loved the concept (tube mic pre, fairly flexible compressor, lovingly crafted) and trust the Analog Ears at UA. Competitively priced too! I was looking for a 'big' vocal sound and hoped the 6176 combination would give me that, so I gambled! As soon as we started with the 6176 there were smiles all around, so it stayed on the session. Thanks UA!"

Producer Gareth Jones and Erasure's Vince Clarke

 

Gareth Jones and the insides of the 6176

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