PRODUCTION POWERHOUSE UPGRADES TO DIGITAL DOMAIN

—Bill Young Productions Installs Yamaha DM2000/ProTools Combos—

BUENA PARK, CA (September 26, 2003)—Bill Young Productions of Sugar Land (TX) recently upgraded six of its eight Russ Berger-designed 14' x 25' recording suites to include ProTools recording media and Yamaha DM2000 digital production consoles for mixing and mastering. According to President Steve Kelly, the upgrade was completed as an effort to move toward a completely digital path for the suburban Houston facility, which produces over 50,000 commercials a year. Founded in 1981 by namesake Bill Young, the company has grown to become one of the leading radio, TV and print production/post production services in the U.S., producing music videos for top artists, radio/TV/print ads for international concert tours and major record labels, DVD projects for corporations, and web audio MP3.

Since 1981, Bill Young Productions has expanded from radio production and post to producing music videos, spots for international concert tours, corporate DVDs and web audio MP3.

"It's all going digital these days," explains Kelly. "Recording, mixing and delivery. We were in the process of updating our audio rooms and looked at new consoles for at least a year. Todd [Beeten] of Sound Construction and Supply in Nashville (TN) had been building some studio furniture for us, and pointed out an installation he did at [producer] Elliot Scheiner's facility in Connecticut which had a DM2000. He said, 'If you haven't looked at the DM2000, do yourself a favor—it's fantastic.'"

Kelly and Systems Engineer Tim Triche arranged a demo with Brook Mays Pro Audio's Spunky Brunone, who then served as project manager for the installation.

"We really liked the ergonomics of the board," Kelly notes. "The layout, the digital capabilities, the power, the internal processing and the size all worked well for us and our work environment. The feature that really sold us was the Pro-Control situation built into it for ProTools."

The fully digital Yamaha DM2000 offers 96 input channels, extensive surround features, a range of 96kHz-compatible stereo effects, many that are specifically designed for surround mixing. The DM2000 is designed to integrate with leading digital audio workstations and computer automated recording systems, including support for ProTools®.

The BYP Family, From L: Steve Kelly, Sean Neal, Bob Oakman, Matt Kelly, Kendall Roffey, Frank Scales.

"We're using the internal DSP on the DM2000," notes Triche. "I'm running gates on the voice tracks coming off playback, and it works great. We have retained some of the outboard gear in a few of the rooms: Eventide 3500s, Manly Voxbox, some Avalons, Aphex Dominators, t.c. electronics Finalizers, and even some DAT and cassette players for voice processing."

The consoles are used for recording to and mixing back through ProTools. Two tracks set up dedicated to the stereo bus, so we actually mix back into ProTools over onto our network, then our dub room takes them from there, where everything is put into the final format, whether it's CD or other digital format, like Fast Channel. The final products are then distributed to radio networks."

As a program director at Houston's KILT and a host of other Texas radio stations, founder Bill Young probably never imagined that his name would be associated with the likes of Metallica, Aerosmith, Yanni, Britney Spears, Alan Jackson, Brooks and Dunn, Janet Jackson, Eric Clapton, AC/DC or *NSYNC. During his tenure at KILT, Young began to produce tour ads for concert promoters Pace Concerts and Beaver Productions. A reputation for superior work spread and soon avalanched throughout the media industry, until Young was producing every radio and TV spot for concert tours. Today, the company offers complete post-production services for the entertainment business, produces animation, graphics, print, live event production and website services. In the duration of time it took to read the previous sentences—somewhere in North America—a Bill Young Productions commercial has aired on radio or television.

"Within our building, we're trying to stay on the network with audio—not so much on tape anymore," explains Kelly, "and are about to do the same thing with our video on Digi Cards. We send approximately 100 or more AVI files per day, and at least that many MPEGS and graphic files. We're fiber optic on our outside internet service, so that helps."

"Most of our audio and video work is sent digitally by email for approval," says Tiche. "It's either compressed down into a QuickTime movie file, a video clip or MPEG. That way nobody has to take a trip—they just log on. It helps, especially when a band is in Europe and has to approve the spot quickly."

In addition to the aired spots, the ProTools/DM2000 combinations have also been put to work for the pre-audio/pre-5.1 mix of George Strait "For the Last Time: Live From the Astrodome" DVD, various corporate DVD projects, and the audio for the websites of Country superstars Lee Ann Womack, Clay Walker, The Dixie Chicks and George Strait (whose colossal site includes 2400 pages of information), all of which were completely produced in house.

For more information, contact Yamaha Corporation of America, Commercial Audio Systems Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622, telephone 714-522-9011, email infostation@yamaha.com or visit www.yamaha.com/proaudio.