Richard Brice

Stuff about me.....

At work in Hong Kong

After university and a short period where I worked solely as a music and hi-fi journalist - something which I continue to do part-time - I started work in an electronics company as a design engineer. Progressing from designer to senior designer in several of Britain's top broadcast companies (including Abekas, Pro-Bel and AVS). I was also responsible for part of the development of AVESCO's first product in the medical imaging field and for the installation of the beta-site version in the VA Hospital in New York.

In 1991 my own interests in music and 3D sound led me to set up Perfect Pitch Music Ltd. Within this organisation, I was responsible for the development of the stereo enhancement system Francinstien and the OM three-dimensional stereo system. Both these systems continue to sell world-wide and have been used on many records, tapes and CD's as well as on television music and film scores. (The client list includes: Queen, David Bowie, Heaven Seventeen, Robert Fripp amongst others.) The OM system - which was developed at the same time as the Roland RSS system and Q-Sound and well before the Thorn EMI Sensaura system - resulted in coverage in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal who reported Perfect Pitch Music as "a company to watch". I have presented seminars on my original work in extended stereophony, to the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at Southampton University and the Surrey University Tonmeister course. I have also demonstrated 3D technologies in Hollywood and theme-parks across the USA.

New studio in Hong Kong

Meanwhile, Perfect Pitch Music continued as a music production company. Drawing on my musical background (I studied composition privately when still at school studying harmony, counterpoint and orchestration and took lessons in composition under Peter Sandar and electronic music composition at the City Literary Institute when in my early twenties) Perfect Pitch Music released nearly two dozen tapes and CD's released on two major record labels - CYP Productions and Tring International. I have over 300 original songs and arrangements most of which are published by CYP Music Ltd. In addition I have written three musicals We'll Launch from Porlock, Copperfield and The Time Machine for the children of a London school. In 1992, I was commissioned to write a piece for the Rainforest Foundation. Called Hey Bulldozer, the piece was composed for orchestra, tape and children's choir and was performed several times during the London Weekend festivals. In 1994, I composed a piece for the Jacques-Levy composition competition called A Stand-In for an Echo which combined recordings of real instruments and 3D sound-effects. In late 1994, I acted as musical director on the first West End run of Mumsie's Christmas Escapade - I also co-produced the show's cast recording with its author, American actor, Eric Loren. The show, starring Sandra Caron as Mumsie from TV's Crystal Maze, also featured Rocky Horror Show's Richard O'Brien and saw the debut of Lionel Blair's 12 year old son, Matthew!

More recent commissions have included a piece called Hymn to Aten, written for the soprano Jane Searle, for soprano, orchestra and pre-recorded tape as well as music for corporate video projects and films.

In 1995, my time was divided between freelance electronics design and writing a book called Multimedia and Virtual Reality Engineering which is published by Newnes. I prepared the book in two ways; in paper copy - naturally - and as a hypermedia HTML document which is supplied with the book as a CD-ROM. In 1996, I returned to work full-time for Pro-Bel as a senior designer and Product Champion for a new range of products called Freeway. For this work I was cited in Post Update magazine as one of the 12 "Disciples of TV Design".

I am presently President of Miranda Technologies Asia Ltd., based in Hong Kong. Miranda Technologies is a Canadian, high-tech, public company designing, manufacturing, marketing and selling capital-equipment products for the broadcast TV market. I was previously Managing Director Europe for Miranda Technologies, responsible for design, development, production, marketing and sales for the EMEA region. I directly managed offices and factories in Paris and the UK. When I lived in the UK, I was a Visiting Fellow of Oxford Brookes University where I taught Sound Engineering in the Electronic Engineering department. In 1998, I had my second book published by Newnes called Music Engineering which went to a second edition in 2003. My third book called, Newnes Guide to Digital Television was published in 2000.

Links

Address all mail to richard_brice@richardbrice.net