The West Coast Chapter of the Association of Music Producers (AMP)has announced  the winners of the 4th Annual AMP Awards for Excellence in TV Commercial Mixing. The association represents television commercial music and sound producers, who celebrated the work of their post-production colleagues at an industry party here last night. The AMP Awards are given for a “body of work” which shows outstanding ability in mixing music, voice-over and sound effects in TV commercials (known as “spots”.)  This year's top honor, Mixer of the Year, was presented to Philip Loeb of Sound Lounge in New York.

The awards event took place at the Mosaic Hotel in Beverly Hills.  In addition to the presentations, the evening’s festivities raised money for the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, which encourages public school music education and provides musical instruments to needy students across America.

Mr. Loeb took top honors for TBS "Buttons"; AOL "Quotes-9.0 Launch"; and Fedex “Desert Island." Two other finalists whose work was cited were Rob Sayers, also of Sound Lounge, who mixed spots for advertisers Nextel, Saab and Nike; and Michael Marinelli from Buzz/NY, whose mixing skills were demonstrated on commercials for GE, M&M’s and Xenadrine.

 “This is a tremendous honor," said Mixer of the Year winner Loeb. "Mixing is just what we do, but it’s nice to have someone notice all the finer details.”

The judges also presented a Special Merit Award for newcomer Tim West of POP Sound/Los Angeles.  Honorable Mentions for a particular spot or campaign were also awarded to the following mixers: Tom Goldblatt of audioEngine/Ny for Snapple “Robot”:30-tv; Mitch Dorf of POP Sound/LA for Ford Mustang “Cornfield”:60-tv; Paul Rodgers of Avenue Audio/Chicago for Hallmark “In the Attic”:90-tv; David Baker of Crescendo!/San Francisco for California Milk Processors Board “Russian Family”:30-tv.

A new category added this year by AMP allowed the public to weigh in on which spot sounded best to them from three finalists.  The “Spotted Excellence Award” for the Best Sounding Spot of the year was given to Tom Jucarone of Sound Lounge/NY for Mountaint Dew “Sled”:60-tv.  Also on hand to receive certificates for "Sled" were representatives from BBDO/NY, the agency that produced the winning spot, and Stewart Copeland of Groove Addicts/LA, the composer and featured performer of the musical score.  Other finalists in this category were Toyota “Wheel”:60-tv and United Airlines “Interview”:60-tv.

The event at The Mosaic hotel was attended by 200 of the advertising and entertainment world's professionals.  The emcee for the awards show was Eduardo Xol, the host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

"The judges were extremely impressed with the quality of entries this year," said event chairman Liz Myers,  composer and principal at Trivers/Myers Music. "That is the reason we expanded our awards list to include more winning spots.  We also looked to the public for its opinion on what the world likes to listen to in our ‘Spotted Excellence Award.’  All in all, it’s been a great year for outstanding television commercial work.”


The Association of Music Producers (AMP) was founded in early 1998 for the purpose of educating its members, and the production and advertising community as a whole, on all facets of music production, from creation to final use.  With its national headquarters in New York, and regional chapters in Los Angeles and Chicago, AMP is the first organization to represent the commercial music industry on a broad platform of creative, business and community matters.  Production guidelines, legal issues relating to rights, licenses and composer royalties, talent negotiations, industry education, public relations and industry charitable endeavors are some of the bullets on AMP‚s agenda.  At a time when the impact of music is growing exponentially in every broadcast medium, AMP is serving to give the music community a clear voice and the benefit of its own experience.  AMP is an affiliate of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP).
 
AMP Website: http://ampnow.com