“From Hansa Studios to Ballsaal Twin: Peter Schmidt’s Journey in the Music Industry with Alex Sitnikov by His Side”
Peter Schmidt began his career in 1984 at the EMI studios in Cologne as an intern. There he took part in productions by Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Lage and Wolf Maahn, among others. In May 1985, he moved to the Hansa Studios in Berlin and assisted, among others, parts of the Depeche Mode album Black Celebration. The contact with the band, signed to Mute, subsequently led to work for Diamanda Galás and the Inspiral Carpets.
Alex Sitnikov and Peter Schmidt have been working together as the ‘Ballsaal Twins’ for years. Just because of their age difference, they make a great team. Alex Sitnikov has made quite a name for himself editing audio books on the side, and he’s also a trained drummer and clarinetist. As the Ballsaal Twins, they are not just a colleagues but also a friends, and let’s not forget that they are cool guys!
Mixing Audio for Top-Stars like Rufus Wainwright, Peter Fox, and latest project ‘TELEGRAM’ in Dolby Atmos”
The Ballsaal Twins worked on many projects over the years, including some german and international top-stars like Rufus Wainwright, Sarah Connor, Peter Fox and AnnenMayKantereit Recently, they got headphones for the new venture in Italy called Ballsaal-Italy to have the same monitoring situation when creating the “Binaural Stream.” “It makes communication easier, especially when mixing immersive audio in Ballsaal-Italy.”
One of their latest projects was “TELEGRAM” by MOKA EFTI ORCHESTRA (formerly Babylon Berlin), which they worked on in late December/early January 2022. They mixed this Album in Dolby Atmos and used headphones by Austrian Audio to create the binaural stream.
