Stephanie Jordan is a powerhouse of dynamic musicality, a modern and unique voice shining through the long, storied history of jazz music. In performance as well as one-on-one she is humble but strong, gentle but full of power-a dichotomy that makes its way into her own performance, carefully crafted over many years of many audiences.
Stephanie grew up in the rich musical environment of New Orleans, in a family who played a variety of instruments-yet she describes herself as an "accidental singer," someone who wanted to sing, but didn't think she could. That changed one night on her birthday, at a club where her brother was playing. He asked her to sing a song with him, and her career was born.

Her philosophy on singing comes from many hours of listening to the radio, when radio was great-singers like Chaka Kahn, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and many R&B groups in the 70s. "When I would listen to the radio," she says, "you had to really sing to be played. Nowadays, you can go record an album and they can doctor your voice up in the studio. Back in the day, that didn't happen-people had to sing." Though she loved R&B, she was surrounded by New Orleans jazz, and jazz is what got into her blood.

The raw energy of New Orleans' Jazz & Heritage Festival would be hard to exaggerate-it's a riot of musical color, a roaring week and a half of electricity that somehow celebrates the past, the present, and the future of jazz in one multilayered celebration. The festival itself dates back to 1970, headlined by gospel great Mahalia Jackson and jazz legend Duke Ellington-today, this unique event is home to a smorgasboard of musical genres including jazz, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, rock, funk, African, Latin, Caribbean, folk, and much more.
This year, the heat turned up in New Orleans-80 degrees and rising-as the Jazz and Heritage Festival got itself ready for the 460,000 people who would swarm its fairgrounds over the next week and a half. As in the past decade, Audix was on the front lines of the festival with the engineers, crew, and musicians of Jazz Fest, supplying over 400 microphones for over 5,000 musicians and 500 acts in the festival's different stages.
Here are a few highlights from Jazz Fest 2015 as seen through the eyes of Audix Co-Founder Cliff Castle. "If you have not experienced the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, you need to put it on your bucket list!" he says. "It is unique in every way and there is no other event that I know of that offers such a wide diveristy of music in a mutli-stage format with unrivalled sound quality.

Read more on the Audix USA website HERE:

If you read our review of Audix’s new Limited Edition D6 drum microphone in our January 2015 issue, you will know that Audix is celebrating 30 years in the microphone business this year.  Over the past three decades the Wilsonville, OR-based company has brought to market quite a few microphones that are now considered modern studio staples the world over.

Audix also has a long history of putting together well-thought-out drum mic packages. This month, for our instrument
miking issue, we are taking a look at a handy little collection that happens to be made up entirely of the company’s two
most famous models: the i5 and the D6.

Since we gave our readers a fresh look at the D6 in the January issue, we will focus a bit more on the i5 and the package as a whole. While both mics have other signature uses, most notably on guitar and bass amps, I’m focusing this review on drum
applications, with some tips on how to maximize the utility of these handy mics.

Download the PDF HERE:

Click the image below to download your copy

Wilsonville, Oregon, October 2014—Audix announced the release of the newest microphone for the installed sound industry, the M3 Tri-element Ceiling Microphone. Setting a new standard in tri-element microphone performance and design, the M3 is TAA compliant, offers fingertip control for adjusting cable length, and includes a UL rated plenum box solution above the ceiling tile.   

In a statement about the M3 release, Gene Houck, National Sales Manager for Installed Sound said, “We received many requests from consultants, AV Integrators, and sound contractors looking for us to build a tri-element mic with the same high performance standards as our highly successful M70, M40 and M55 conference ceiling microphones.  The M3 is an answer to that call.”

Featuring a sleek profile with contemporary design that is smaller than other multi-element mics on the market, other M3 features include: