Steve Vai Releases Ocean Way Microphone Locker app

Utilizing Allen Sides' microphone collection at Ocean Way Recording studios in Hollywood, this new app allows the recording engineer to easily find the right microphone for the right instrument .

"When the app revolution hit, I remembered that great CD-ROM and knew it would make an extraordinary app," explained Steve Vai. "I acquired the rights for the Ocean Way Microphone Locker CD-ROM contents and worked with Allen Sides, who is a very good friend, and Metal Sidecar, LLC to build an app from the material. Metal Sidecar did a fabulous job and the app is phenomenal. You can actually access Allen's mic collection and match them with a complete range of musical instruments. You get tips on the best miking techniques and can listen to samples played by top session cats like Hal Blaine on drums."

Allen Sides is considered the world's leading authority on vintage and contemporary recording microphones and their uses. Sides owns the world's premier microphone collection. He is also the owner of Ocean Way and Record One recording studios, is a legendary Grammy-winning engineer with close to 40 years of experience, and has worked with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Green Day. In this app, secrets are revealed on how to pair the right microphone with the right instrument with its optimum placement. This app also contains a comprehensive list of microphones and instruments and gives diagrams and specs on each.

The Ocean Way Microphone Locker app features tests of 66 mics and 33 different instruments, including drums and cymbals, percussion, guitars, a Hammond B-3 organ and a wide variety of brass, woodwinds and strings. The microphones include models from: AKG, Audix, Audio-Technica, B&K, Beyer, Coles, Crown, Electro-Voice, Groove Tube, Milab, Neumann, RCA, Sanken, Schoeps, Sennheiser, Shure, Sony and Telefunken. Sort by microphone to check out the best instruments for each, or sort by instrument to see which mics work best.

David Schwartz, co-founder of Mix magazine, produced the original CD-ROM that this project was based on, and coordinated the conversion of the original recordings and media into the app format with Steve Vai, Eric Theriault (with the rest of the app development team at Metal Sidecar) and Greg Wurth.