AUDIO IN A 360 WORLD
(Part 1 of 5)
by Robert Margouleff
MY HISTORY
I started out as a filmmaker. In 1967, I had returned from serving in the military as a combat photographer in Germany. I settled in the East Village in New York City. Across the street from my 5th floor walkup on 2nd Ave, I watched Bill Graham build the Fillmore East in an old, rundown Yiddish Vaudeville theater. That’s where I met many of the refugees from Andy Warhol’s Factory. From these relationships, I made a film called “Ciao Manhattan.” The verité style of the film was very much like the documentary style of my combat photography from my days in the Army.
While I was preparing the soundtrack for “Ciao Manhattan”, I discovered the Moog synthesizer. I had a brainstorm and thought that this would be a fantastic way to score my film. I met Bob Moog and put an early model in my studio to score “Ciao Manhattan” with collaborator Gino Piserchio.
THE FIRST WAVE OF DISRUPTION
As I was working on the score for the film, I realized that the synthesizer was about to create a major sea change in the way we could conceive, create, and hear music on instruments that don’t exist in the real world. I believed it was going to change everything, and it did!
Electronica exploded.
Creatives like me, a Beatnik living on the lower East Side, loved it because it could easily be controlled. I saw its potential, and applied it to my work. The synthesizer was big, complex and a little intimidating, but I loved the sounds I could make and all that it could do. Standing in front of the synthesizer, I looked like a disheveled hippie from another galaxy, with extra-long hair and very colorful tie-dyed clothing. Most music industry types did not know what to think of me, but I persevered. I abandoned film making and ran into the open arms of electronica. There were no schools to teach it, or figure out what it was about. It was all new territory and I learned as I went. It changed the course of my life, and the courses of your lives as well. If the synthesizer had not happened for me when it did, I would not be here before you today. I also think many of you audiophiles would not be here as well! The synthesizer was a major disruptor in the world of live and recorded music and I was partly responsible for opening that door! (Learn more about how I did this here.)
Now, I have joined HEAR360 for the next big disruption. Working closely with a team of award-winning audio engineers, producers and innovative software developers at HEAR360.io I can see the future, just as I did during the first days of working with the synthesizer.
The rapid development and growth of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality is fundamentally changing how people communicate and create intense emotional experiences. Combine the visual experience of VR/AR/MR with TRULY IMMERSIVE AUDIO and you have the next big disruptor — spatial audio.
To learn more… read PART TWO next week.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Margouleff is a Grammy Award winning American Record producer, recording engineer, electronic music pioneer, audio expert, and film producer. Margouleff’s work has always been on the innovative edge of art and technology. Most noted for his work with electronic music synthesizer programming for Stevie Wonder, he produced four of the music sensation’s albums.
In 2004 Margouleff realized that surround sound for the home theatre was different than theatrical surround. He advanced the theory of “near-field” surround mixing and mastering and formed Mi Casa Multimedia, a unique complex of sound studios located in an old Hollywood mansion. In these studios, which emulate the home environment, Mi Casa’s engineers remastered for Home Theater audio for over 100 top-selling titles, including New Line’s entire Lord of The Rings cycle, MGM’s James Bond Collection and Fox’s X-Men: The Last Stand.
Now Margouleff is committed to the next big disruptor in audio — fully immersive audio technology for music, games, VR and AR. He joins HEAR360 in their quest to make VR sound incredible.
