Creative & Technical Achievement Winners Announced at the 31st Annual NAMM TEC Awards

JEFF “SKUNK” BAXTER and RECORD PLANT’S CHRIS STONE AND GARY KELLGREN INDUCTED INTO TEC AWARDS HALL OF FAME
Evening hosted by comedian Sinbad
Presenters: Joe Walsh, Nathan East, Peter Asher, Ed Cherney, Rose Mann-Cherney, Sylvia Massy, Jimmy Douglass, BT

Anaheim, Calif. (Jan. 23, 2016) – Winners in 31 technical and creative achievement categories were announced at the 31st Annual NAMM TEC AWARDS held on January 23 in Anaheim, Calif. The annual event celebrates the best in professional audio and sound production and is held during the NAMM Show, the world’s leading global music industry trade event drawing nearly 100,000 decision-makers and musicians to the Anaheim Convention Center.

“This gathering of the music technology and pro audio community at NAMM helps to complete the full spectrum of music making tribes at the NAMM Show,” said Joe Lamond, president and CEO of NAMM. “The NAMM TEC Awards are the opportunity to recognize the inventors, creatives, musicians and brands who are fueling the next wave of innovation behind how the world experiences music and sound.”

Comedian Sinbad brought the laughs as the jubilant host of the award show. Four companies, Avid, iZotope, Shure, and Solid State Logic, won multiple awards in the Technical Achievement category each taking home two TEC Awards. Creative Achievement top honors were spread across various platforms including television, film, touring and more. Creative winners included everything from the sound production team behind HBO’s popular Game of Thrones series to the producers of James Taylor’s latest album Before This World. Projects tied to the Foo Fighters’ eighth album Sonic Highways were also awarded double honors for event sound and remote production (recording).

Don Was, one of music’s most significant artists and executives, received the evening’s highest honor, the Les Paul award. Mr. Was ended the night and his own celebration with a live music performance that included his former Was (Not Was) band’s catchy ‘80s hit “Walk the Dinosaur.” The Les Paul award recognizes individuals and institutions that have set the highest standards of excellence in the creative application of audio and music technology.

Jeff “Skunk” Baxter along with Record Plant’s Chris Stone and the late Gary Kellgren became the newest inductees to the NAMM TEC Awards Hall of Fame. Baxter, a founding member of Steely Dan, took to the stage for a set that included the group’s famous track “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”

A complete list of winners can be found here and below:

TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
AMPLIFICATION HARDWARE - STUDIO & SOUND REINFORCEMENT
Antelope Audio / Satori Monitoring Controller

ANCILLARY EQUIPMENT
Rupert Neve Designs / RNDI: Active Transformer Direct Interface

AUDIO APPS FOR SMARTPHONES & TABLETS
PreSonus / Notion 2 for iOS

COMPUTER AUDIO HARDWARE
Universal Audio / Apollo 8p Thunderbolt 2 Audio Interface

HARDWARE / PERIPHERALS FOR SMARTPHONES & TABLETS
Shure / MOTIV MV88 iOS Digital Stereo Condenser Mic

HEADPHONE / EARPIECE TECHNOLOGY
Audio-Technica Corporation / ATH-R70x Pro

LARGE FORMAT CONSOLE TECHNOLOGY
Solid State Logic / XL DESK

MICROPHONE PREAMPLIFIERS
Manley Labs / Manley FORCE

MICROPHONES – RECORDING
Neumann / U47 FET

MICROPHONES – SOUND REINFORCEMENT
Shure / 5575LE Unidyne 75th Anniversary Vocal Microphone

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT AMPLIFICATION & EFFECTS
Eventide / H9 MAX

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT HARDWARE
Moog Music / Modular Recreation

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT SOFTWARE
iZotope / Iris 2

RECORDING DEVICES
Zoom/F8 MultiTrack Field Recorder

SIGNAL PROCESSING HARDWARE
Tube-Tech / HLT 2A Equalizer

SIGNAL PROCESSING HARDWARE (500 SERIES MODULES)
Solid State Logic / 500-Format LMC+

SIGNAL PROCESSING SOFTWARE (DYNAMICS/EQ/UTILITIES)
iZotope / RX 4 Complete Audio Repair & Enhancement

SIGNAL PROCESSING SOFTWARE (EFFECTS)
AMS Neve / AMS RMX16 Digital Reverb Plug-In For UAD-2 Platform

SMALL FORMAT CONSOLE TECHNOLOGY
Avid / Pro Tools I S3

SOUND REINFORCEMENT LOUDSPEAKERS
Meyer Sound / LEOPARD

STUDIO MONITORS
Genelec / 8351A SAM

WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Sennheiser / Evolution Wireless D1

WORKSTATION TECHNOLOGY
Avid / Pro Tools 12

CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT

FILM SOUND PRODUCTION
Birdman

INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT SOUND PRODUCTION
Batman: Arkham Knight

RECORD PRODUCTION / ALBUM
Before This World by James Taylor

RECORD PRODUCTION / SINGLE OR TRACK
Dreams by Beck

REMOTE PRODUCTION / RECORDING OR BROADCAST
Foo Fighters Sonic Highways

STUDIO DESIGN PROJECT
Paul Epworth's The Church Studios, London, UK

TELEVISION SOUND PRODUCTION
Game of Thrones

TOUR / EVENT SOUND PRODUCTION
Sonic Highways World Tour, Foo Fighters

In total, winners in more 31 categories were selected from more than 180 nominees by voters from major pro audio publications including Mix, Pro Sound News, Pro Audio Review, Sound & Video Contractor, and Electronic Musician magazines, as well as members of the Producers & Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy, Game Audio Network Guild, Motion Picture Sound Editors, Audio Engineering Society and select NAMM members.

The 31st Annual NAMM Tec Awards headline sponsors included HARMAN International Industries, Inc., the Les Paul Foundation, Visit Anaheim, D’Angelico and Sennheiser. Many of tonight’s winning products and technologies are available at music and pro audio retailers worldwide both online and in stores.

High-resolution images for editorial use are available here. Photo credit: ‘Jesse Grant/Getty Images for NAMM.’

For more information, visit www.tecawards.org.

###

About NAMM Foundation
The NAMM Foundation is a non-profit supported in part by the National Association of Music Merchants and its 10,300 member companies around the world. The NAMM Foundation works to advance active participation in music making across the lifespan by supporting scientific research, philanthropic giving and public service programs. For more information about The NAMM Foundation, please visit www.nammfoundation.org, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Media Contacts:
Lora Bodmer - NAMM
Director of Public Relations & Social Media | Phone: 760.438.8007
lorab@namm.org

Jeanne O’Keefe - The Lippin Group
Vice President | Phone:  323.960.1990
jokeefe@lippingroup.com