Sound Works Collection

I just ran across this amazing web site which features great video interviews conducted by Michael Coleman:  soundworkscollection.com

Rydstrom

“If we do our jobs well and throw in a little evangelizing, we can make sound as important a part of filmmaking as it should be.”

-cool quote I found from Gary Rydstrom from filmsounddaily.com.  Let’s start evangelizing a little bit.

Sound Education

My long subway commute on the MARTA train to work in the morning is spent trying not to think about anything audio related, knowing that the rest of the day will be spent being preoccupied with such things.  However, a few mornings ago, the New York Times had an op-ed that had me right back thinking about audio, and more specifically audio education. While the article did not specifically address sound education, the philosophy in the article applies to education on any level, field, or age group.  The article was an op-ed entitled Teach Your Teachers Well and cut through so much of what I saw, not only in my youth in public schools, but what I also experienced in the Post-Graduate levels working with experts in their chosen fields, namely sound disciplines.

So much attention gets paid to the cool, shiny gear that audio schools offer, and while there is no doubt that these resources can make a significant difference in an audio student’s success, the quality of the teachers often times gets overlooked.  If you go to many audio schools, they will tout first how much cool stuff they have, and next their instructor’s industry experience.  Although I think that industry experience may be important in demonstrating the realities of a student’s chosen profession, much more important is a professor’s ability to plan a curriculum, lessons, and inspire students.  ”Show me a school where teachers are smart, well-educated, skilled and happy to be there, and I’ll show you a group of children who are getting a good eduction”, writes Susan Engel.  Too often in my own experience I have seen professors who are content to talk about what the industry is like rather than to inspire a true interest in the art of what we do.  ”To fix our schools, we need teaching programs that are as rich in resources, interesting, high-reaching, and thoughtful as the young people we want to attract to the profession”.  Through hiring practices that focus on how well an instructor would do in a classroom mixed with teacher training, audio programs will increase in their efficiency and creativity.

Paparazzi

By some strange twist of fate, I ended up with my picture in two magazines this month.  The first is in a French magazine called VSD, which seemingly covers all things fluff, although it is hard to tell since I don’t read French.  VSD had somehow come across The Wiitles, my Wii-remote rock band, and thought we’d fit nicely into their article titled (I love this) “Du jeu video a l’art geek”.  Again, I don’t speak French, but can demise that the article is about Arty Video Game Geeks.  The Wiitles will gladly take France, fits in with our plan to change the world.

Not nearly as exciting but kind of cool in context, I also am in a full sized advertisement in Mix magazine for my alma mater, the Savannah College of Art and Design.  I haven’t yet seen this since my subscription has worn out, but heard about it from one of my favorite old professors, Rob Miller.

Max for Live

As I find my excitement level for Max for Live continues to increase and my bank account continues to let me know that buying the program is not likely to happen for at least a little while, I find myself compensating for my lust by reading about Max for Live online.  This interview with Robert Henke from  Cycling ’74’s own web site  is one of the finest I have read.  He both talks about the exciting possibilities of Max for Live and also warns about having too much expectations from it.  Here is the link: http://cycling74.com/2009/11/21/an-interview-with-robert-henke/#more-3329.

Tiny Desk Concerts

It is rare to experience the kind of intimacy with musicians as can be found on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts.  Different bands or musicians come in to this NPR studio, which is really more of an office space than a recording studio and perform a short concert.  The vibe is casual and relaxed, and tends to capture a side of the musicians that is hard to come by.  I only discovered these little jewels just a few days ago and have been glued to my computer ever since, watching such legends as Vic Chestnutt and Jim White, as well as underground eccentrics such as Dr. Dog and Thao Nguyen.  Genius idea NPR.

The one I have posted here is from my current favorite musician.  I discovered him about two years ago and it really pissed me off.  The album, Close to Paradise, featured the combination of electronic and beautiful, organic orchestrations that I had been trying to achieve.  The band I had assembled was talented but did not understand the idea.  Watson, essentially, beat me to it.  His next album, Wooden Arms, proved far more beautiful and strange and has become my current obsession.  This video shows the amazing depth of sounds that this band is able to achieve with just four musicians playing very standard instruments.  Enjoy:

Oryx and Crake (the band)

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally getting to a place where I have achieved enough separation from the recordings my band, Oryx and Crake, made a little over a year ago, to do some mixing. I tried to mix as soon as the recordings were done and quickly realized what a terrible idea this was.  I couldn’t hear but the mistakes, and even what was played well enough seemed to be too loud or too soft at any level I tried.  A year and a couple of rerecording sessions later I think I’m finally ready for final mix mode.  The problem, of course, is how close to the album I am.  I programmed the beats using Ableton Live, played the guitar, autoharp, piano, organ, and some of the guitar, and, most personally, did almost all of the singing across the songs.  You may be thinking that I should have known better to be mixing my own music… even at this late stage of separation.  But I’m going on in spite of this, and in spite of myself.  I love this music, and I’m going to make it match my vision, even if my vision has shifted a step (or a jump) from the one I had last summer.  Stupid… maybe, but I’m having a blast.

Check it out on myspace or facebook.  If you like what you hear, add us as a friend or fan.  I’m also getting back on the promo highway, and so I’ll be sending updates about shows and posting more mixes in the short run.

Traphouse Thriller

I had never worked on anything anywhere close to Traphouse Thriller.  So, when I was asked about doing the production sound for a thriller re-make featuring the rapper Chill “Wealthy” Will, I knew I had to do it.  The concept was good, if obvious, and the rapper had a great voice to boot.  But I have to admit that it was breaking out of my comfort zone combined with the fact that I had just moved to Atlanta and felt this was the proper first project to work on that really made me want to jump on board.  The production sound, it was decided, was not worth the cost (although watching some of the awkward production sound, I kind of wish they had splurged), and so I became an actor instead (That’s me getting chased by a machete-wielding crack-zombie).  All in all, a fun Saturday night.  Now it’s time to get back to my decidedly chamber-rock roots and Wii-mote wanking.  Enjoy!

Youtube Bandit

The idea of using sound clips from Youtube videos has come up no less than 100 times each quarter since I began teaching audio.  Although I am completely naive to the legality of this, I almost always indulge them with the one of the, I’m sure, thousands of ways there is to accomplish this.

Youtube videos are now saved as .flv (flash video) files.  In order to import these into most DAWs, you will first need to convert these .flv files into .mov files. The way I do this is using a Firefox plug-in called download helper.  You will need to download this at http://www.downloadhelper.net/.

You’ll see a yellow box to the left of the screen like this one below:

Click “Installation” inside the yellow box.

Follow the installation instructions.

Before download helper will work, you’ll need to restart Firefox.

One more plug-in you’ll need is a Quicktime plug-in known as Perian which allows you to open the .flv file you download from Youtube.  Go to this web site, http://www.perian.org/, and download Perian.  A lot of my students have forgotten to follow the entire download through to its end.  Don’t forget to click “Download Perian” on this screen:

Restart Quicktime.

Now go to the Youtube video you want to sample.  You will now see three dots next to any video that you can download via Download helper such as below:

Clicking the three dots will begin an automatic download of the .flv from Youtube.

The video will download directly to its own download helper folder:

The final step is to open the file using Quicktime.  If Perian is properly installed, the .flv should open in Quicktime with no problems.

The file will open in Quicktime.

Next, simply export the file.

The file will default as a .mov.  Save the file to a convenient place and import the newly formed .mov to Pro Tools or whatever DAW you’re working with.

Sample away.

Creating an ADR three beep

To create a three-beep, start by creating a mono Aux track and a mono Audio track and inserting a signal generator onto the Aux track.

Use a bus to send from the Aux track to the Audio track.

Use the signal generator to create two 500 kHz sine tones and a 1 kHz sine tone that are each 50 to 100 milliseconds long.

Next, use the Grid mode to place each tone one second apart (one second is arbitrary… if this rhythm is too slow, go with a faster spacing).

Then highlight the track from three seconds all the way back to the beginning of the session and go to Edit and the Consolidate to create one long region with all three beeps.

The consolidated region should look like this:

This three beep region can now be placed directly before the line the actor is being cued for, so that the imaginary ‘fourth beat’ one second later is their cue and their entrance to the line.

You should copy this region and place it in front of all the ADR cues in the session.  That way the session will run much more smoothly.

For overlapping beep regions, you will want to select the region and press Apple (Command), M in order to mute the overlapping beats.

These guidlelines will save you a lot of time and anxiety in your ADR sessions.