For all the time that musicians dedicate to perfecting their craft, they are often left frustrated during live performances or recording sessions when microphones or sound systems don’t project the true sound of their instruments.
But now, a Brown University alumnus and drummer thinks he has found a solution that will allow acoustic musicians to produce their true sound.
Steve Schwartz founded Your Heaven Audio, a hardware company that accurately reflects the true sound of acoustic instruments without the processed background noise that normal microphones typically pick up. The devices can also record acoustic instruments with high-quality audio, while isolating background noises, even in noisy rooms or outside.
“You can play in any environment without the room's acoustics affecting your instrument's true sound,” Prachi Jain, COO of Your Heaven Audio, told Rhode Island Inno. “Musicians previously needed sound engineers on stage … now, the musicians don’t have to worry about the engineering and can focus on playing music.”
The company sells a device for bowed instruments such as the violin or cello that costs $650; one for the mandolin that costs $630 and one for acoustic and classical guitars that costs $500.
Called the CloseUp System, the technology achieves superior sound isolation, capturing rich, natural sound and rejecting ambient noise.
It can also record the sound of instruments while blocking out other instruments that might be playing simultaneously or other background music, enabling a musician to get concise feedback from their performance in a live performance.
The CloseUp System outperformed five industry-leading mic systems in the company’s benchmark tests, generating a virtual distance of 247 feet from ambient noise sources; Your Heaven Studio has obtained five different patents.
Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, musician and audio engineer Steve Addabbo called the Your Heaven Audio products a “first” in his 40 years of recording.
Schwartz, class of 1991, developed the technology as an undergrad, but only in recent years has it become cheaper and more feasible to manufacture.
Since starting to sell its products last year, Your Heaven Audio has done about $30,000 in sales and its products are also used at the Berklee College of Music. Earlier this year, the company won the entrepreneur track of the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition, which earned it $15,000 in cash and nearly $42,000 in professional and consulting services.
However, Jain said the company does not plan to solely sell just to consumers, but also target guitar manufacturers in the $1.2 billion industry. With the patents, she said the company will look to license its products to larger music companies such as Sony and Bose.
