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Employee Interview: Richard Saldana

Richard Saldana, Quality Control

What's your official job title at UA?
Quality Control.

What is a typical day for you at UA?
Inspection, lots and lots of inspection. I inspect all incoming parts, such as purchased components, sub assemblies, cable assemblies and board assemblies. Other duties include process inspection, first article inspection on fabricated material, and lots and lots more.

So where are you from?
I am from here, a true Santa Cruzian.

“I like the people I work with, especially the ones in my cell block.”

How long have you worked at Universal Audio?
It will be two wonderful years in October, and I'm looking forward to many more.

What type of work did you do before UA?
Well for the last 20-some years, I've always worked in a manufacturing / quality-control position. One of my favorites was working for a plastics company that manufactured toys for one of its customers. Testing of their product was lots of fun.

What do you like about your job?
I like the people I work with, especially the ones in my cell block. I also really like working for a smaller company where we all know each other's name. We're all kind of a family here! I enjoy being part of a team that produces the highest-quality products for the end user, with the emphasis on continuous improvement.

What kind of music do you like?
Almost everything except RAP.

What are your hobbies?
I love to cook, but not everybody can be an Iron Chef. I also love playing golf, gardening, traveling, gambling, hanging out with friends and staying out of jail. I really love football: my two favorite teams are the Raiders and any team that beats the 49ers.

Do you have a favorite "Santa Cruz" moment?
When my brothers and I were kids, we use to have Capitola P.D. chase us, and we would play hide and seek from them. Luckily they weren't very good at it because we never got caught.

Will you tell us about your family?
I come from a large family. My mother Ester, who I love with all my heart. My dad who is no longer with us, but is here it spirit and who I miss dearly. My sister Diana, who is the oldest of the bunch. My brothers Zeke, Ray, Joe, Sal and me the youngest. I also have lots of nephews and nieces. I may not be rich with money, but I am surely rich with family.

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Upcoming Events . . .

Precision Multiband up for Tec Award UA has been nominated for an industry TEC Award for the Precision Multiband plug-in for UAD-1. Keep an eye out for the ballot in Mix magazine and vote for UA early and often! The final results will be revealed at Fall AES in San Francisco in October.
	UA Precision Multiband, TEC Award Nominee

121st AES Convention
AES returns to San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center this year from Friday, October 6 to Sunday, October 8. UA has not one, not two, but THREE major product announcements to make, but the people making the products are smart enough not to tell the people making the WebZine what they are... Watch this space for more information.

UA Cosponsors Recording Magazine Great Gear Giveaway
Please check out Recording Magazine's Great Gear Giveaway! The grand prize winner will take home a UAD-1 Ultra PAK, a SOLO/610, and a lot of great stuff from Shure, Yamaha, Disc Makers and Berkleemusic.

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News & Schmooze . . .

TCM Announces Winners of the 2006 Young Film Composers Competition Tom Karsch, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Turner Classic Movies, presented Darryl Raby with the 2006 TCM Young Film Composers Competition grand prize award at the ceremony on Friday, August 4. UA VP of Marketing Mike Barnes attended the event and presented John King of Fort Wayne, Indiana, with the third prize: a SOLO/610, SOLO/110, and a UAD-1 Ultra PAK. Nice third prize!

From left to right: Tom Karsch, Darryl Raby, Hans Zimmer and Mark Northam

Dr. Dave Berners, First Official UA Rock Star
Dave Berners, Electrical Engineering PhD, UA Director of Algorithm Development, and modeler of many of the pro audio industry's favorite plug-ins, is now Universal Audio's first official Rock Star. The Rock Star is hand-picked by UA President Matt Ward each month, for outstanding contributions and exemplary attitude. The Rock Star receives a commemorative jacket, a plaque, and a $100 bill. Congratulations Dave, you deserve it!

UA President Matt Ward presents the first official UA Rock Star Award to Dr. Dave Berners, Director of Algorithm Development

UA Picnic
UA knows how to have fun. This was proven at the 2006 UA Picnic on August 18. The festivities included a water balloon catching contest, a treasure hunt, a frightening game of indoor dodgeball, a watermelon eating contest, a first-to-put-on-a-frozen-T-shirt contest, and of course, lots of food. While many picnics in the USA are not complete without a large animal roasting over open flames, UA ate mostly vegetarian, because hey-this is Santa Cruz.

Production Trainer Louisa Torres cringes at a soggy defeat

Sales Directress Erica McDaniel likes the pirate hat	Production Tech Don Havasy says, "You want some of this?!"

Another UA Employee Does Another Great Deed IT specialist Devinder Sahota headed down to Southern California for a couple of weeks in July to help out with a very special kids' camp. Here is what Devinder had to say about the trip: "I volunteered at Camp Ronald McDonald For Good Times, a summer camp program for kids with cancer and their siblings, a 'place to experience camping, have fun, and develop self-confidence.' During that time, I was responsible for co-facilitating the radio activity, in which campers were given the opportunity to record and broadcast music and skits on the local camp AM radio station. It was a lot of work, but the challenges proved to be extremely rewarding, and it was an amazing chance to work with young people and foster their creativity. I can't wait to go back next year!"

Nater, one of Devinder's campers, in appropriate attire for his closing campfire performance.

Devinder and the Ladies of Cabin Four, dressed to impress.

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Tech Talk . . .

Universal Mac Drivers for UAD
UAD Software version 4.4, featuring the Neve 33609 bus compressor, is due for release during September. Shortly following this release, we expect a public beta, which will feature Universal Mac support. Watch the UAD downloads page for more information. Applications designed for the Macintosh operating system (Mac OS X) that run native on both Power PC- and Intel-based Macintosh computers are called Universal applications.

Sonar Error 21 Fix
The close collaboration between Universal Audio and Cakewalk has resulted in a fix in the Sonar VST wrapper that is still doing well in the beta stage of testing. The official release is still forthcoming. The beta release is available to all registered Sonar users. If you are experiencing this error (21) with the software, please contact UA customer service.

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Press • Artist • Engineer • Producer Gossip . . .
The Universal Audio MarCom team headed out for a press tour last month to demo the UAD-1e PCI Express card. As usual, visiting the magazines makes for lots of fun, and they were very excited about reviewing the new card.

From left to right: Matt Harper, EQ magazine; Steve Fortner, Keyboard magazine; Marsha Vdovin, Media Maven; Laney Eroken, Marketing Director, MusicPlayer Group; Vicki Hartung, Group Publisher; and Mike Barnes, UA VP of Marketing

George Petersen, Executive Editor of Mix magazine, discusses UA's competitors with Marsha Vdovin, Media Maven

Mike Barnes, UA VP of Marketing, and Marcus Rovito, Technical Editor of Remix magazine, listen intently to George

UA MarCom Manager Joseph Lemmer tries out one of the editor's guitars	UA VP of Marketing Mike Barnes shows us what he's made of