BIO
Riccardo Mazza
Riccardo Mazza is a sound experimenter and professor at the School for Alto Perfezionamento Musicale (Advanced Musical Studies) of Saluzzo, known in Italy and abroad for his research in the field of psychoacoustics and the evaluation of spatial sound,
He's the owner of Experimnental Studios in Turin and founder of electronic A/V duo Project-TO with Laura Pol photographer and video-maker, author of numerous works in the world of art, culture and museums.
Case Hystory
1997 - 2000
Early Days
In the early '90s he made his first album in the United States with the group "Imagine", carrying out all the production in person at Chick Corea's Mad Hatter Studio in Los Angeles and thereby developing crucial important formative technical experience. He returned to Italy in '93 and released his first solo album in the progressive electronic genre with Vinyl Magic, "The Virtual Cage", under the pseudonym Next. In '94 as a sound engineer and producer he produced many house music albums for the dance music label Synthetic, sharing in their national and international success. In '95 he began working as a product specialist with Midi Music of Turin, in research and beta testing for the biggest international music software companies.
During these years he was still collaborating with many recording studios in Italy as an arranger and sound designer/producer for pop music. In '97 he began working in close collaboration with Franco Battiato, who he worked with for almost two years carrying out research into new technologies in the fields of sound and experimentation. During these years he created a new experimental solo project, which debuted in June with an innovative live set at the Magazzini Generali club in Milan. This was the first live set spatialised in 10 sound sources placed around the audience, achieved by placing the musicians around the perimeter with the public at the center.
2000 - 2006
Spatial Audio Research
In 1999-2000 he created the Renaissance FX Dolby Surround encoded library, the world's first collection of sound effects for film and television made in spatialised Dolby Surround, and some years later he created SoundBuilder, the first software capable of adding a soundtrack to video, conceived for the creation of input in surround.
In the early 2000s he began new experimental research in the field of Contemporary Music, collaborating with many contemporary artists and taking part in numerous exhibitions.
In 2003 he discovered and created the psychoacoustic model of "sleep waves" which earned him recognition from the Turin Polytechnic and a series of articles in major newspapers and national magazines.
2006- 2015
IInteractive Design
In 2001 he founded the Interactive Sound studio in Turin, a visual and sound research laboratory specialising in the artistic design of exhibitions and multimedia pathways with strong emotional impact, which develops through the creation of interactive immersive video environments. With Interactive Sound, Riccardo Mazza designed some of the most prestigious exhibitions and immersive sound and video museum pathways in Italy.
2015- 2022
Back in Music
In 2015 has been published “Experimental Works 2000-2015”, a collection of 9 CDs with over 50 original compositions created in the first fifteen years of the 2000s Together wit Laura Pol in 2015 he founded Project-TO an "authorial" project of electronic and visual music, it develops from the interaction of purely electronic elements with original compositions performed live together with visual elements also carried out in real time during the Live Set. In 2018 he opened the Experimental Studios one of the most advanced a recording facility in EU officially listed Dolby ATMOS.