Anaheim, CA
Don Was was honored with the Les Paul Award at this year’s TEC Awards, held at The NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA. Photo: Jesse Grant/Getty Images
(January 25, 2016)—The 31st Annual TEC Awards were held Saturday at The NAMM Show in Anaheim, highlighting achievements both technical and creative in the worlds of pro audio and sound production. Hosted by comedian Sinbad, the event issued more than 31 awards over the course of the evening, including multiple wins for Avid, iZotope, Shure, and Solid State Logic, which each won two awards in the Technical Achievement category.

Additionally, musician/producer/label man Don Was received the Les Paul award, which is given to “individuals and institutions that have set the highest standards of excellence in the creative application of audio and music technology.” Meanwhile, the NAMM TEC Awards Hall of Fame inducted Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Record Plant’s Chris Stone, and the late Gary Kellgren.

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 were selected from 180 nominees by voters from 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 and select NAMM members. Sponsors for the evening included Harman International, the Les Paul Foundation, D’Angelico and Sennheiser.

TEC Awards
www.tecawards.org