Another film project nearing completion

Can't say too much at this time, other than I've been finishing a film score on a short for American Blackguard. Great folks to work with!

How Times Have Changed

When I first started working in studios, digital was a bit of a pipe dream. Most professional rooms were based around a console, a 2" 24 track, and a selection of outboard gear. Shortly thereafter, the ADAT burst onto the scene and began the whirlwind transition to digital. And why not? The ADAT sounded pretty good, the tape was cheap, and the price was amazing, especially after the price dropped after the initial run.

Of course, they weren't without drawbacks. I need not go into those here.

ADAT (and the other small digital tape multitracks) were a transitory technology. Random access systems quickly felled the beast and took over, causing a whole generation of studio rats and performers to have to become simultaneous left & right brain types as IT issues became constants in this new method of music making. Whether using dedicated hardware (i.e. RADAR) or off-the-shelf computer-based systems, dealing with the foibles of computer tech just became part of the equation.

I've been seeing some transitions of my own in recent days. Being from the days of tape, I'm also used to real instruments. Plug-in virtual instruments seem, well, disposable when compared to a physical keyboard. Yet I find myself using them more and more. I guess I've really had to sell myself on this because I've come up with a bit of a philosophy regarding real vs. plug-in instruments.

Plug-in instruments are time savers. They are great for quick sketches while composing. Plug-in samplers really cannot be beat in the real world. Yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for my Emu E5000 (upgraded and modded out the wazoo), but ESX24 in Logic, MOTU's Mach5, and NI's Kontakt are superior tools. Visual editing of samples, easy looping, access to huge libraries of sounds without paging through small windows, use of 24-bit samples... I could go on and on. For that matter, all of the digital synthesizers are really better in the software realm.

What physical keyboards am I finding myself using? The electro-mechanical ones, the Rhodes, Hammond organ and Clavinet. I have great software emulations of all of these. Why do I still use the real ones? They all have that near-imperceptible "something", perhaps it's the inherent flaws, the feel of the keyboard... I can't completely place it, other than they are comfortable for me to play, and I play differently on each of these keyboards than I would on my MIDI controller.

Analog synths, or digital ones with a lot of hardware control (sliders, knobs) are also seeing a lot of use. I have yet to match the "bigness" of a Moog sawtooth bass in software. I still hold onto keyboards with nostalgic value as well (my DX7) even though software emulations are definitely superior.

So I'm seeing a hybrid system evolving. Yes, life would be easier if I'd let myself go entirely into the computer, but I feel I'd be missing something. Maybe I'm a somewhat of a keyboard luddite, but it still feels right.

Using Logic Pro for Theatrical Sound Design

I was recently hired to do sound work for a play and, of course, they asked if I could provide some sound effects and music playback.  Of course, I agreed to do it, as I have built up a considerable sound effects library over the years.  Not to mention that sound design is one of those things that I do.

I took a look at my available tools.  In the past, I've brought in hardware samplers for playback of music & effects, but setup on my old E5000 is a bit cumbersome.  I started thinking that a software sampler would do better.  This, of course, led me to look at Logic's ESX24.

Laying out samples on the ESX24 is simple.  I really just needed one-shot sample playback for the most part.  It was just a matter of dragging the samples into Logic, opening the samples in the sample editor, and cleaning up the beginnings and ends.

Simple right?

It turned out that the spooky wind sample I used was shorter than what was needed for the particular scene.  I had never actually done any looping in ESX (I had yet to build any sampled instruments) so I was less than thrilled with what I initially saw as the method for setting loops.  In the edit window, it looked like the method was to set sample numbers for the start and end of the loop and gave rudimentary tools for editing crossfades.  I started doing trial and error.  Painful to say the least.

Now Logic has a fine sample editor window.  I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could open the samples in the sample editor.  Lo and behold, a method was in there and it worked great!

Turns out there's a little drop-down menu for each sample.  It is accessed by the drop-down arrow just to the right of the sample name.  All I had to do was select the Open in Sample Editor menu item and Voila!  There it was, ready for graphic editing!

Tools were in place for setting loops easily.  I easily selected the area I wanted looped, made certain that search zero crossings was ticked in the edit menu to help avoid pops, and selected selection -> sample loop.  After that I selected Write sample loop to audio file.

So I went back to the ESX editor and it didn't work.  Once again a bit of user error.  You have to turn the loop on in the ESX editor to have your new loop take effect.

It worked beautifully.

By the way, I decided to just place the music for playback in the arrange window sequentially.  This way, I could set markers and skip between markers with a self set key command.

Works great!

I'm almost looking forward to trying to loop something musical!

The Return of Bent 6!

I'm happy to report that Bent 6 Audio is returning to service, better than ever!  Bent 6 is my own studio where I have been set up to do mixing and editing.  Bent 6 also houses my keyboards and guitars and is set up as happening little control room.

Now, Bent 6 has two decent sized recording booths coming up, a tech shop, and a comfortably-sized control room configured for 5.1 and stereo mixing.  Audio for picture work is one of Bent 6's new focuses and the rooms are being configured for ADR and foley work as well as traditional recording.

Pics coming soon!

Drum mic technique update: check your distances

Just wanted to give a few more thoughts on the previously mentioned drum micing technique. When doing this, it is very important to check the measurements from the snare drum to the omni mics. These need to be the same distances from the center of the snare. If not, the snare will be skewed to the closer mic - thanks of course, to Haas' Precedence Effect! (Drum roll for application of physics, please!)

If I were doing a two mic kit (just the omnis) I'd try to make certain the mics were equal distances from the center of the bass drum as well.  This, needless to say, will result in some rather strange mic placements and could be difficult to place in a way conducive to playing a drum kit!  In practice, I have found that using the 3rd mic (the kick mic) allows us to not be so fussy regarding mic placement.  As long as the distances are reasonably close.  The kick mic will serve to solidify the image and (once again, thanks to Haas) will sound before the kick sounds (at a much lower volume) in the omnis.  The low frequency wavelengths from the kick mean that the sound arriving at the omnis will be more or less in phase assuming we haven't done some incredibly crazy wide placement.

I'll continue to explore this.  It has worked out to be too good to leave alone.