THE SIGNAL PATH TO 50th ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARD NOMINATIONS: LAVRY ENGINEERING AT OASIS MASTERING

Oasis Goes Through Lavry LE 3000S Digital Finalizer and LavryBlue Converter for Nine Different 2008 Nominees, Spanning Multiple Genres

SEATTLE: A great song is essential for earning a prestigious GRAMMY® Award, but having excellent gear in the mastering chain doesn’t hurt either. The Lavry Engineering LE 3000S Digital Finalizer and LavryBlue A/D D/A Conversion System at Oasis Mastering have been in the signal path for no less than seven artists nominated at this year’s 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards: Pepe Aguilar, Akon, Brian Bromberg, Bettye LaVette, Machine Head, Prince, Jill Scott, Tank and UGK.

“Our Lavry gear played a very important role in the mastering for several of this year’s GRAMMY nominees,” says Eddy Schreyer, Owner/Chief Engineer of Oasis Mastering.
Converting the analog world into the digital world is a very complex and difficult feat -- the Lavry 3000 is by far the best sounding real time sample rate converter we’ve heard.

“After many listening tests we believe the LavryBlue Series A/D converters deliver the most accurate versions of the source input, without increasing distortion or unwanted artifacts. Meanwhile, the D/A side gives us exceptional detail, giving us the accuracy we need to make good corrective decisions.”

Schreyer’s approach to mastering at Oasis’ new Burbank suite combines perfectly with the Lavry Engineering philosophy of providing extremely transparent conversion for audio applications. “It’s not easy to match the power and depth of our analog recorded history with the use of digital platforms today,” Schreyer says. “I always strive to make the mix sound as exciting as possible, and my goal here at Oasis is to deliver a loud, clean, and tonally balanced mastered mix.

“The hours of research and development of designing digital equipment of the quality of the Lavry Engineering LE3000S and LavryBlue, I can’t even fathom,” continues Schreyer. “The passion and dedication of Dan Lavry and entire Lavry team has delivered some of the very best digital hardware I’ve heard. It’s also extremely dependable: We’ve been using Lavry for the past couple of years and have never experienced a failure.”

All audio at Oasis Mastering requires a pass through Lavry Engineering’s LE3000S Digital Finalizer, where the 96/24 signal is dropped down to 44.1kHz/16-bit for CD. A powerful multi-function digital audio processor for sample rate/word length conversion, monitoring, and measurement, the LE3000S includes multiple dither and noise shaping settings, plus reference quality metering. With 96Kbytes of algorithm coefficients for superior accuracy, its sample rate converters offer the highest performance in the industry. Meanwhile, High Density Downsample provides 2:1 sample rate change for extreme audio precision.

The extremely transparent LavryBlue Modular A/D D/A Conversion System provides 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96kHz sampling frequencies. Featuring Lavry’s exclusive CrystalLock, Acoustic Bit Correction, and wide vari- speed operation, the LavryBlue can be configured in 2 to 8 channels A/D, D/A or a combination of both, and is also available along with MicPre modules in one space-saving unit. The LavryBlue’s A/D cards allow the selection of various word lengths, Analog or Digital soft saturation and Acoustic Bit Correction, dither and noise shaping. Other features include LED metering, reference meter bridge, peak detection and front panel gain control. Lavry’s renowned conversion may use internal crystals or externally lock to Word Clock or AES signal.

Whether the music Oasis Mastering is handling comes from GRAMMY-bound artists or a highly-inspired independent debut, the unparalleled accuracy of Lavry Engineering is there to make the all of the music come through. “Mastering great songs and hearing them on the radio is a great sense of fulfillment, and putting my stamp on the debut albums of so many major artists past and present is another,” Eddy Schreyer says. “The desire to find the gear that will improve our sound is never-ending. Lavry Engineering designs equipment that is unequalled in sonic quality, and their function and reliability is outstanding. As engineers we react to what we hear: Lavry Engineering’s converters are an indispensable part of our mastering chain.”

Visit www.grammy.com for the full list of nominees for the 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards, to be held on February 10, 2008.

About Oasis Mastering:
For more information, please visit www.oasismastering.com.