Award-Winning Producer Steve Pageot Records and Teaches with HARMAN’s AKG Microphones and Headphones

NEW YORK, New York – Legendary producer Steve Pageot picked up his first HARMAN’s AKG recording microphone at the age of 19, from where he ambitiously combined his engineering skills with a passion for music, leading to an esteemed career in music production. Inspired by electronic engineering magazines, he taught himself how to mix and record songs three years later. Today, he uses several AKG microphones and headphones that have seen him through countless studio sessions.

Having worked on multiple high-profile albums with Krayzie Bone, Aretha Franklin, and even a movie with Nick Cannon, Pageot’s credits are as his audio engineering skills. To perform consistently at a top level, he exclusively uses AKG microphones for all of his recordings. His microphone inventory includes AKG C1000S, P820 and C414 XLII microphones, and he owns three pairs of AKG K240 MKII headphones at his home studio.

“I want to use the best out there, and AKG is the best,” said Pageot. “The C1000S was the very first AKG microphone that I owned, and it still works! It is a very professional microphone that is preferred by artists like Aretha Franklin, and can be used on many different aspects of recording for many years.”

“Later on, since adding the P820 microphone to my inventory, I’ve been amazed at the sound that it produces,” Pageot continued. “Artists love this microphone, because the harder they hit it, the better it sounds. You can really hear the harmonics, as an increase in power adds more color to the sound without any distortion. I personally like to record a lot of my flute tracks on this microphone.”

Pageot also enjoys the airy qualities of the AKG C414 XLII microphone. “It’s nice to be able to change the sound with the bass cut filters, which alter the color of the sound,” Pageot added. “It is an excellent microphone for enhancing those midrange notes.”

With regards to the K240 MKII headphones, Pageot is extremely pleased with how natural the sound output is and how comfortable the design sits on his ears. “They’re amazing, and I love how transparent they sound, reproducing the recordings perfectly,” he said. “You can wear them for many hours without ear fatigue, and that’s the reason why the vocalists and I have been using them for three years in my home studio.”

Currently, Pageot is feverishly working on multiple projects, including Krayzie Bone’s final album, MTV shows and the initial stages of the latest album by the Jacksons. However, his most admirable feat could be his one-on-one music production classes, where he teaches audio students how to produce records with AKG microphones.

“I teach students that what you use in the studio dictates how your music is going to sound,” Pageot said. “I swear by AKG microphones, because they allow vocals to cut through the music, regardless of how loud it is. I don’t need to add a lot of EQ to make the vocals sound good, because these microphones reproduce the vocals exactly how it sounds in the studio. That is why I will never record without AKG microphones.”

View Steve Pageot on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGviDx-aPQg

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of 15,200 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $5.1 billion for the last twelve months ended March 31, 2014.

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Producer Steve Pageot And HARMAN’s Lexicon PCM Total Bundle Try Their Best to Make James Harden Sound Good

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Houston Rockets basketball star James Harden is one of the world’s most talented players. If only he was as talented as a singer. In his entertaining 2013 Foot Locker commercial, Harden spoofs the desire for sports figures to branch out into other areas – whether they should or not – by attempting to record an R&B single and torturing the engineer’s ears in the process. The wildly popular “Foot Locker – Harden Soul Featuring James Harden and Stephen Curry” commercial has received more than five million hits on YouTube and was mixed by artist and multi-platinum producer Steve Pageot with the help of HARMAN’s Lexicon PCM Total Bundle.

Pageot got the call to mix the spots from music composer Wendell Hanes, author of “The 30-30 Career: Making 30 Grand In 30 Seconds!” Pageot wrote the chapter “Mastering the Commercial Mix” for the book, and Hanes knew Pageot could do the job under the almost-impossible deadline constraints. “Wendell called me and told me he needed the mix done immediately and e-mailed me the Pro Tools files,” said Pageot. “I dropped what I was doing and a few hours later the mix was done.”

Pageot knew he could rely on the Lexicon PCM Total Bundle to get the sounds he needed quickly and dependably. For the mix, he first created an auxiliary stereo channel and inserted the plug-in’s “Simple Delay” and “Large Plate 1” presets, then tweaked the presets to his liking. The stereo sends from Harden’s vocal track were used to send the vocal signal to the auxiliary effect channel to simultaneously engage both effects.

“I continue to go back to the Lexicon PCM Total Bundle because of its rich, lush, pretty and unique sounds that I can dial up within seconds to take my mixes to the next level,” Pageot noted. “The goal of mixing a song is to make it sound like a masterpiece – but I had to keep Harden’s vocal mix close to raw and not to process it too much. Because the Lexicon reverbs sound so magical, with each preset I would dial up I kind of found myself going against what we had to do in the commercial!” Pageot wound up using some subtle effects processing throughout the track to give it its broadcast-worthy “finished” quality. “I truly feel that the subtle reverbs and delays I used made this commercial mix a hit.”

But even Pageot’s talents couldn’t get Harden to sing in tune or do anything about that paint-peeling voice. As Stephen Curry says to James Harden in the remix video: “You should probably not quit your day job!”

“We applaud Steve’s work on this very unique and entertaining project,” stated Noel Larson, Market Manager, Portable PA, Tour and Recording, HARMAN Signal Processing. “We are always excited to hear about new and exciting ways that talented producers like Steve are using Lexicon and this is certainly one of the more memorable projects I’ve heard about!”

HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 14,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.3 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013.

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