Prairie Sun Profile: Oz Fritz, Freelance Producer/Engineer

Oz Fritz has been a professional studio and live sound engineer for more than 25 years. He has collaborated on over 60 projects with producer Bill Laswell including Ginger Baker, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Herbie Hancock, George Clinton, Elvin Jones, William S. Burroughs, and Bob Marley. Other studio credits include John Cale, Digital Underground, Jungle Brothers, Meat Loaf, and Rick Derringer. In the last few years Oz has engineered releases by Oysterhead (Les Claypool, Stewart Copeland and Trey Anastasio from Phish), legendary Cuban pianist Pepecito Reyes, and "Antipop" by Primus.

For a number of years now Oz has been doing a considerable amount of his studio work here at Prairie Sun, including the Grammy Award-winning "Mule Variations" by Tom Waits and "Wicked Grin" by John Hammond, Jr. (produced by Tom Waits), two outstanding records that exhibit the level of sonic artistry Oz is capable of bringing to our rooms. Oz takes a unique conceptual attitude towards mixing, and for that reason has a discernible style, which at Prairie Sun often involves heavy use of our signature features, such as our live echo chambers and vintage outboard gear.

As a member of our extended Prairie Sun family, Oz has been a mentor and educator for many of our interns and staff engineers. Oz himself came up through the ranks in NY, working in many iconic rooms featuring the same boards and gear you can now find at Prairie Sun. So needless to say, he knows the SSL, he knows the Neves, and he knows how to make distinctive records with authentic character. And, as a freelance member of our extended family, Oz is accessible and available to work on your record.

Mooka's Notes:

As I've hinted in recent newsletters, and discussed with many of you in person, Eugene Productions, my personal production, mastering, and live sound company, has been gearing up this year for a serious move into the live PA and remote recording business. As we've continued this process there have been some exciting developments in live sound technology. Imagine having 48 world-class, remote mic pres on stage piped straight to your front-of-house. Imagine being able to take a digital split directly off all 48 mic pres to a Pro Tools HD rig for recording. Now imagine that for tonight's sound check, you can play back last night's multitrack through your FOH board as if it were coming from stage. Now imagine that all of your outboard, including all of your favorite Pro Tools plug-ins, lives in your console.

I am happy to announce that Eugene Productions is now the proud owner of just such a live mixing system: the Digidesign D-Show Profile. I can't tell you how excited I am by some of the new and unique features offered by Digi's VENUE boards, and as I and my engineers have been studying the Profile we have been continually re-impressed by the attention to detail and forethought that went into the design of the console and software. Already the board has been pressed into service as the centerpiece of our remote recording services, along with our remote Pro Tools HD system, RADAR 24, DPA microphones, and Millennia mic pres, for a 52-track symphonic recording (look for more details in a future newsletter). And so begins the launch of Eugene Productions' sound reinforcement and remote recording services!

On another note, as we have recently celebrated the birth of our nation and the transcription of some of her more lofty ideals, I want to touch on the disturbing trend for folks to believe their inalienable rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of free downloads ;-). Rather than simply pontificate on the subject here, I invite you to check out the discourse already in progress thanks to Moses Avalon and his "Moses Supposes" email newsletter. I highly recommend one of his recent pieces, "Da Vinci On A Necktie," and the follow-up collection of responses (from which Moses has been kind enough to let me excerpt while we wait for the articles to be posted on his site). What I find invaluable in his newsletter is not simply what Moses himself writes, but the incredible variety of responses he's chosen to reprint from all sides of the music industry. I think this is a dialog we all need to take part in as it is about the future of our industry, our livelihood, and most importantly, our art. So please, email me your thoughts, or talk to your friends, colleagues, and contemporaries, maybe your congressman. In closing, I'll share this anonymous reflection with you:

With that, I wish you Happy 1st Annual Prairie Sun Mustache Day (June 30th), everyone!