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Sounds Like Summer

June 20th officially marked the first day of summer, which means we are practically halfway through the year! Somehow the never-ending 2020 is managing to pass by in the blink of an eye. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we have been in quarantine for nearly 4 months now. I guess time flies when you’re stuck inside! Luckily, the world is slowly beginning to reopen just in time for us to enjoy the sunshine.

With the changing of the seasons comes a whole new world of sound. So, let’s discuss some key summertime sounds to keep an ear out for and record to bulk up your SFX library this time of year!

Sounds Like Summer:

  • Beach AMB – seagulls, waves, sandy wind gusts
  • Fireworks
  • Campfire
  • Summer Crickets
  • Water Activities – sprinklers, water balloons, water guns
  • Lawnmower
  • Ice Cream Truck
  • Air Conditioning
  • Slurpee Slurps
  • Badminton/Volleyball

Tips and Tricks:

Fireworks: Most towns have a celebratory firework display every 4th of July. Click here to check out a helpful blog post written by Boom Box Post-co-owner Jeff Shiffan about recording sound effects with your phone. In the post, Jeff uses fireworks as an example! Who knows, maybe you’ll also get some cool crowd reaction walla. I know I’m definitely that person who OOH’s and AHH’s way too loud at a good firework show.

Badminton/Volleyball: If you can get your hands on a badminton or tennis racket, quickly swing the racket back and forth to produce different swish/wipe SFX’s. These types of sounds are really handy to have in your library—especially when working in animation.

Ice Cream Truck: Does the ice cream truck not visit your neighborhood? That’s ok, you can make your own! Did you know the iconic music played by ice cream trucks across the world is public domain? The melody is from the folk song “Turkey in the Straw”. Download yourself a clip of the tune and throw it into a plugin like Doppler by waves. Make sure to check out these two blog posts (The Doppler Effect, Creating Motion In Sound Design Using Pitch) for tips on how to create the perfect “by”!

Slurpee Slurps: When I think of summer, I think of night drives with my friends to the local gas station for slurpees. Who doesn’t need a good straw slurp SFX in their library? I feel like it would come in handy more than you would imagine. Any tumbler and straw will do the trick! Although, if you can get your hands on a slurpee I recommend the Coca-Cola or banana flavor.

A COLLABORATIVE POST WITH Boom Box Post

 

 

Sonic Memories

At Boom Box Post, we try to take the time to meet with nearly everyone who asks: be it for an interview or a to give career advice to a young editor.  Among the most inspiring parts of interacting with those who are new to the profession are the questions they pose that cause us to look again at our job with fresh eyes (and ears!).  One of these questions which was posed to me by a recent audio school graduate was, “What should I do to prepare myself to be an editor?”

My answer is, “Start listening.”

Unlike visuals of which we take constant notice, sound is often an unnoticed undercurrent in our lives. Ask yourself: when you tell a story to a friend, do you describe what you saw or what you heard?  Most likely, you focus on the visuals.  Now think about how hearing a sound from your childhood can suddenly thrust you back to the emotions from that time in your life.   Sound can be an incredibly powerful storytelling device.  Think about what emotional state the story asks of the viewer. It is our job to connect our personal sonic memories to those emotions.

To give you an example, I’d like to share one of my favorite memories from childhood: going camping on an isolated lake in northern Wisconsin with my family. I’d like to tell the first part with visual descriptions and the second with sonic descriptions.  Think about which one you find yourself connecting to more.

THE VISUAL TAKE

When I was young, we often went camping at a lake in northern Wisconsin.  My father always said, “It’s not a vacation if I see anyone else.”  So we drove for hours to part of the north woods, parked in a remote lot, and then carried our gear and canoe along a path to a little piece of beach no wider than a child’s arm span and launched out into the lake.  From there, we paddled to our campsite which was accessible only by water.

Once we had settled in, we spent most of the days by ourselves.  My father wandered off amongst the trees to take photos of butterflies, mallards, or sometimes us.  My mother took care of the camp, cooking the meals and washing dishes, and my brother and I played in the forest.  Each evening, we shared a special moment together: a canoe ride at sunset.

THE SONIC TAKE

As the sun dipped lower in the sky and began to cast a shadow over the lake, the sound of the forest suddenly turned.  The lively birds and cicadas of the day ceased and a period of pure silence washed over us.  Our canoe scraped against the grit of the shore as we pushed it into the water, then only the sound of the tip of the bow cutting the water could be heard.  We paddled into the center of the lake to the steady beat of oars splashing into calm water, and then stopped and just sat, letting the silence envelope us.  After a while, we heard what we were waiting for:  a loon.  It skimmed across the water, letting loose its lonely cry, and we heard this solemn sound echoing off the banks and folding back on us like an origami bird.

SPINNING STORIES FROM SONIC MEMORIES

When sound enters the equation, don’t you feel not only a better understanding of the events of the story but also an emotional connection to it?  This is what I attempt to achieve in each project.  As sound editors, it is not just our job to look at the screen, and place the sound for the action we see (door open, door close, car ignition on, gear shift), but also to think about what emotional state the story asks of the viewer.  It is our job to connect our personal sonic memories to those emotions and use them to trigger the right feeling for the audience.  For example, whenever I’m faced with a scene that asks the audience to appreciate a lonely expanse of wilderness, I add in a loon.

THE LISTENING PROJECT

Now that you understand the importance of sound in storytelling and how to use it to make emotional connections for the viewer, there’s only one thing left:  start listening.  As you go about your daily life, start taking note of what you hear.  This will help you in your ability to draw on these sounds as you edit.  Think about this the next time you go for a hike, enjoy dinner downtown, attend a party with friends.

QUESTION: WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SONIC MEMORIES FROM CHILDHOOD?  

Mine are: the loon from my story, the sound of a foghorn coming through my window on a hot summer night, and the perfect hollow pop that a tennis ball makes as it hits a racquet. 

Glossary of Sound Effects (Part 2)

Our first Glossary of Sound Effects post was so popular we decided it would be fun to expand on it. This time around we not only included more specific search terms, but also a handful of modifiers. These terms, such as ‘by’ ‘up’ or ‘quick’ speak to the characteristics of the sound choice you are looking for. Try adding them to other terms (i.e. ‘zip quick’ or ‘violin up’)  to further narrow down your search.

Ambiance – Atmospheric sounds to build the space of a scene. Also look up: background, amb, environment

Beam – A steady synthetic sound. Also, look up: glow, ray, phaser

Beep – The tonal sound of a button press. Also, look up blip

Bork – A cartoonish sound that conveys disappointment.

Brush – The sound of leaves or foliage. Also, look up: leaves, bush, foliage, twig

By – This modifier should be added to searches for moving objects like Jet or Car, characterized by an increase and decrease in volume as the object passes by.

Chatter – A repetitive sound that conveys shaking, commonly associated with cartoonish teeth movement. Also, look up: shake, rattle

Chitter – small animal noise, repetitive and often cute sounding. Think squirrel or hamster.

Doppler – A sound that changes pitch as it passes by. Think truck horn starting from a distance and dropping in pitch as it crosses your path.

Drop – The sound of something falling to the ground.

Electricity – The sound of an electrical current, often wavering in volume and intensity. Also, look up: arc, crackle, spark

Flutter – Any sound with a very fast cycle of volume from low to high. Think of a humming bird’s wings or pod racers from Star Wars.

Ghost – Ethereal, often melodic and scary in nature. Also, look up: spirit, whisper

Hydraulic – The very distinct sound of something propelled by liquid moving in a confined space. Think forklift or fancy door hinges. Also, look up servo

Impact – The sound of a collision, be it small or large. Also, look up: hit, crash, smash

Debris – A cacophonous sound, usually starting thick and eventually settling. Can be used as the aftermath of an event as big as an explosion or as small as kicking up dirt.

Konk – A hollow hit, usually tonal in nature. Also, look up: bonk, coconut, hollow

Laser – The sound of a synthetic weapon. Also, look up: ray gun, pulse, beam

Movement – This modifier can be added to any search requiring both material and motion. Also, look up in short form: mvmt

Old – A modifier for sounds that are typically somewhat poor in quality, as though they were recorded a long time ago. This term is about looking for a specific character in your sound. Also, look up: old, classic, antique

Poink – A short, pointy sound. Also, look up: pluck, doink

Quick – Use this modifier when looking for sounds with very short duration. Also, look up: fast, short, sharp

Ratchet – A repetitive clicking sound Also, look up: crank, pulley, latch, turnstile

Ricco – This shorthand for Ricochet is the sound of a bullet bouncing. Can be used in cartoony moments when a character zips off screen very quickly.

Ruckle – The repetitive, throaty warble character of a sound. Typically emanating from the depths of a large animal or monster. Think of the T-Rex growl from Jurassic Park.

Rummage – Quickly digging through various materials. Also, look up junk

Servo – Short for servomechanism, this is the sound you would typically associate with the moments of a robot or other motorized electronics. Also, look up robot

Slide – This modifier signifies a changing in pitch; a character often associated with violin recordings or whistles to convey emotion in cartoony moments.

Splinter – The sound of small breaking or cracking wood. Also, look up: twist, stress, crack, wood break

Stinger – A musical sweetener that helps place emphasis on a dramatic moment. Also, look up: trailer hit, action

Telemetry – Rhythmic and somewhat repetitive beeps. The sound of calculating technology. Also, look up: computer, scan, beeps, tech, process

Up/Down – Add these modifiers to your search to convey the pitch motion of your sound. Slide whistle Up, for example, would start at a low pitch and end on a high pitch.

Valoop – The sound of something squeezing out of a small space.

Wobble – A repetitive, quick pitching sound used for moments of shakiness. Also, look up: warble, hypno, flutter

Zip – Any fast movement, often with some sort of musical character. Also, look up zing

See the original post here.

 

Creating Monster Vocals with Voxpat

People often ask us why we choose to work in such a niche market, sound for animation, and for us, the answer is simple.  Live-action sound design has its own challenges and rewards, but more often than not, you’re recreating the sounds of the real world.  While working in the animated realm, week after week we get to work inside imagined worlds, create sounds for unknown creatures, and image futuristic technology conceived in the minds of the world’s most fantastic artists.  These new worlds give us the opportunity to use ever-evolving sound design techniques to breathe life into them.

We found such a technique when the software developers from Digital Brain Instruments approached us with the opportunity to create new presets for their stand-alone application, Voxpat, which is a sound design tool for creating monsters, creatures, and robot vocals.

The Software

In the past we’ve used our usual suite of plugins as well as Dehumanizer for this task, so we were interested to try out a new creative avenue.  It turns out that Voxpat is a sound designer’s dream if a slightly complex one.  It combines all of the different vocal processing plugins you might want to use into one massively powerful application: convolution, sample player, ring modulation, harmonizer, FM synthesis, spectral pitch shifting, delays.  And the list goes on, and on, and on.

This plethora of sound design tools all packed into one application means that you need to read the manual to use it to its full potential.  But, once you do, the sky is the limit in what this application can do.  What Voxpat lacks in intuitiveness (and it is somewhat lacking here), it certainly makes up for with power.

Recording the Samples

This month, we used our creative team meeting to have a mini masterclass on how to use Voxpat.  Then we opened up a mic to record raw new monster vocals to use for processing. The team had a blast coming up with interesting types of creatures so that we could play with the full harmonic spectrum in Voxpat.  We recorded ourselves as a screeching monster, a giant serpent, an ogre, and even a gargle monster (our intern almost choked, but we assured her it was worth it. Anything for a great sound!).

 

 

Eric and Tess applaud Jessey for her awesome squealing alien sounds. Here are a few of the raw samples:

 

You can listen to their samples

Creating New Voxpat Presets

You can download a demo version of Voxpat here, and check out the Boom Box Post preset pack.

 

Creative Self-Marketing Ideas for the Audio Professional

As studio owners, Jeff and I get tons of requests for advice regarding how audio professionals can either kick start or amp up their careers. In an industry that doesn’t necessarily post jobs on a website, use recruiters, or have a standard interviewing process, how are talented creative people supposed to get their foot in the door? There are so many different ways to answer these questions, but at least one large chunk of this is personal marketing.

I read a lot in my spare time, and I love to get my brain working with business books of all kinds. Unfortunately, I’ve found personal marketing books tend to be, in my opinion, relatively useless for those of us in the sound field. They seem to be full of tips either so obvious that they’re painful (Make a website! Write an amazing resume!) or filled to the brim with antiquated business advice (Make sure you have professional business cards!).

So, I thought that I would put together a few interesting ideas that I’ve seen people use to creatively market themselves in the field of audio. Here they are!

Offer to write member interviews for your industry guild’s publication.

I know a mixer who did this years ago when she still lived on the east coast and was attempting to jump-start her career. She interviewed tons of top mixers in a thoughtful and engaging way. Then, when she decided to take the plunge and move to Los Angeles, she already had a bevy of contacts who had personally interacted with her. She never would have gotten to know all of those top industry professionals if she hadn’t volunteered her time for her industry magazine. To this day, whenever I’ve heard her name mentioned in passing, everyone is always quick to say, “Oh, you know her, too? Everyone knows so-and-so! She’s so amazing!” She put in the hard work upfront and it paid out tenfold in the long run.

Offer to write articles for an online professional magazine.

In this case, you can really present yourself as an industry influencer and/or technical expert. I mean, how amazing would it be if a potential employer googled your name, and fifteen plugin reviews from a top online audio magazine came up with your headshot and byline? You would definitely appear to be a cut above the rest. This is a great way to absolutely crush your SEO. If you go this route, you may want to prepare a spec piece to give them a sample of the kinds of things you would like to produce. Also (added bonus!), don’t be surprised if writing interesting product reviews also results in offers to try out new plugins for free! This is a great way to build your audio arsenal and your online brand.

Engage with your community on social media.

Follow sound professionals you admire on Twitter and comment on their tweets. Join some audio Facebook pages (I love Game Audio Denizens, Sound Girls Private, and Professional Freelance Sound Mixers) and comment on posts. Like your favorite studios’ Instagram pics. People love to feel connected, and it’s easier than you might imagine to feel like you “know” someone after you’ve interacted a few times on social media. This is the virtual version of hanging out in the right room. If you’re there long enough and you make your presence known (in a non-annoying way), you will inherently be seen as belonging. I would caution you to start small with commenting and liking, then move on to posting when you’re more confident. Definitely, don’t just jump in and post every day. That’s like crashing a wedding and then hopping on stage to give a speech.

Volunteer at a non-profit that involves your prospective clients or co-workers.

I’m a member of the non-profit group Women in Animation whose mission is to advance women in the field of animation. Their current goal is to reach 50/50 (men-to-women ratio) by the year 2020, which is absolutely amazing! You might ask why I’m into Women in Animation rather than SoundGirls, which has a similar goal but for the audio field. I’m actually in both, but the distinction is extremely important: I’m involved in the animation group for my personal/business marketing and the sound group for my own enjoyment.

That’s because when your aim is personal marketing, you want to put yourself in the “right room.” And that means a room with the people who can get you work, which is very different than a room filled with your peers. Boom Box Post does sound for animation, and we’re hired by animation studios. So that means that the main place I need to network is with animation professionals. For freelance sound editors, that might mean going to guild events to connect with new supervising sound editors. For mixers, it might mean attending a charity golf tournament sponsored by the post department of one of the big studios. The most important thing is to write down the top three people/job titles that could help you to find work, and then brainstorm places that those people might be.

Start your own professional networking group.

I know a few people who have done this. This can mean putting together speakers for a quarterly professional panel discussion, or maybe just setting up drinks at a local bar for like-minded audio professionals.  Whatever it is, you can put yourself on the map and meet a lot of amazing people along the way. If you’re facilitating networking and/or learning opportunities for others, chances are that one day they will want to reciprocate the investment you made and help you out. Plus, you’ll get to have a fantastic time along the way!

Start a Lunch & Learn club.

Jeff and I came up with the idea of holding monthly “Lunch and Learn” sessions a few years back, and we’ve been blogging about it ever since! Every month, we get our team together for lunch, and then one person gives a demonstration of anything at all at which they consider themselves an expert. This can mean using a certain plugin, cutting a slo-mo sequence properly, using Soundminer to the max, etc. It’s a great way to keep everyone both learning and teaching, and also gives the team a go-to person should they ever have questions on the topic in the future.

Since beginning to blog about this, we’ve had numerous people tell us that they’ve started their own Lunch and Learn at work. We absolutely love this! Keep the good karma going and share your knowledge.  Lunch and Learns not only show everyone involved in the best light as creative professionals, but they also give everyone a chance to invest their time and energy in helping those around them. And an investment in others is always something that can pay dividends down the line when those same people are in a place to hire you, recommend you, or even just walk your dog when you’re on vacation!

Start a virtual freelancers club.

If I had to guess, I would say that the number one group of people Googling “self-marketing” are freelancers. It’s hard to know where to start in making connections and positioning yourself correctly for a fab career in the future when you work from home and rarely interact with others. If you don’t get a lot of time with peers, starting a freelancers club is a great jumping-off point in marketing yourself!

For most professions, a freelancers club usually means meeting up once a week with other freelancers at someone’s home or a coffee shop and working in the same space so that you can be a little more accountable regarding how you spend your time and also get to feel like you have co-workers. Obviously, the need for a desk full of audio gear doesn’t exactly make this practical, at least in its usual incarnation.

But, I love the idea of starting a Slack channel or using other e-workplace software to create a virtual freelancers’ club. We all need other people to bounce ideas off of, get tech support from, bullshit with, and (most importantly) share stupid .gifs about things like our bad lunch habits and Golden Girls obsession. So go ahead a get e-out there! Having a set small group that you always interact with will make your workday much more enjoyable, eventful, and help you to bond with others who could help to vouch for you in the future.

Designing Signature Sounds

The Project

I recently had the pleasure of creating signature elements for a new animated series which will likely air near the end of 2019.  We were brought into the process at a very early stage, the first animatic, which was incredibly exciting. If you aren’t already aware, in animation, an animatic is essentially a video of storyboard panels timed to work with the recorded dialogue and then exported as a video.  An animatic is a very thorough blueprint for the animation studio to follow. Adding sound design to an animatic can do a number of things: it can bring the animatic to life for the animation studio which allows them to better understand how to animate important moments. It can help executives to better understand the action when reviewing the animatic for approval. And it can establish signature elements early on so that the sound can help to inform the animators’ creative concept for the series.  Having clients who appreciate the importance of bringing the sound team into the mix (pun intended!) early on is a wonderful thing for us here at Boom Box Post! So cheer to all of our amazing clients!

The Process

Step 1: Brainstorm about an Overall Aesthetic

The key elements of the series are birds and babies (sorry to be cryptic about the premise, but it’s too early to share too much about this project!). My mind immediately started churning about how to incorporate these in a way that would be nuanced and special.  When designing sounds for a new project, it’s also important to consider the audience. This series is geared toward preschool-aged children. So I also wanted to create a soundscape that would be friendly and familiar to viewers in that age group.

First, I decided to make all of the items in this animated world sound like they are made out of materials familiar to preschool kids.  This would involve recording a ton of children’s toys to really let these textures shine through in the mix. The set locations look high tech and designing in that aesthetic is always fun. But isn’t it much more fun to design a baby’s take on tech?  Now that would be a challenge.  Second, I decided to incorporate the bird aspect of the series by creating new sci-fi sound effects for all of the tech elements by processing bird calls.  I didn’t want the bird calls to be in your face. After all, it doesn’t take much creativity to just throw a bunch of hawk calls on everything. But, folding them into my tech builds sounded like a fun challenge that would result in a truly unique signature sound aesthetic for the entire series.

Step 2: Decide which elements should be stand-out signature designs.

I consider anything that will clearly appear in a series again and again to be signature.  And so, even if it’s a mundane item, to me it’s an opportunity to add a little special flavor.  You might think it’s a waste of time to create special door open sound effects or record all-new hand grabs. But creating a new palette from scratch for all reusable elements can ensure not just stand-out sound design moments but an overall signature aesthetic for an entire series.

For this series, I decided that the sounds for all of the things in the main location should be signature: all doors, all grabs of items and furniture, all mechanical elements, etc.  Basically, anything that will clearly be seen again and again needed to be custom.

Step 3: Create a Custom Recording List

When I’m creating a recording list, I like to brainstorm things to record which might add to the overall aesthetic I’m trying to achieve while keeping in mind what I need to cover.  Sometimes, if you map out exactly what to record for each signature element, you close off your brain to considering other options during the process. Think about the general aesthetic you would like to achieve and come up with items that you think may help to achieve that aesthetic–whether you think you’ll use them now or they may just be handy to have in the future.

Here was my list.  Notice that I’m focusing on what I want to hear and not marrying myself to specific items just yet:

  1. Toy ratchet
  2. Toy click into place
  3. Different plastic items for grabs
  4. Toy rolling
  5. A toy which “pops” or “thunks”

Step 4: Browse for Items to Record

I took this list to a local children’s consignment store and roamed the aisles looking for interesting items and listening to how they sounded.  I chose a consignment store because it was cheaper, but also because the toys were not in their original packaging, so I was free to test them out.  Often browsing for things to record is best done in your own home or a friend’s closet for this very reason. Keep in mind that the best recordings are made from items which are different from what you actually see on screen. You want to achieve a certain texture, a certain sound, a certain feel. You don’t want to just record the exact thing you see in the picture.  Think about how an old loose doorknob is often used for gun foley or a piece of celery is broken for a good bone crunch. When choosing items to record, shut off the visual part of your brain that’s telling you to go for the obvious, and start listening to everyday items with your creative hat on. Evaluate each item solely on its ability to give you the sound properties you’ve already brainstormed in the above list.

Step 5: Record new sounds

Step 6: Edit your recordings to work with the picture.

Once you’ve recorded all of your new (or old) props, bring everything into your DAW and start playing.  Often I find that elements I recorded in hopes of covering a certain signature element actually work best for something else.  Don’t be afraid to play around and try new things. Use the clean recordings, process them to the point that they are unrecognizable, or mix them together with sounds from your library.  In this step, you are the sonic painter. Give yourself the creative freedom to use your full palette and don’t be afraid to make a mess. That’s how the best discoveries are made!

Step 7: Collaborate with your clients.

Sound is never a job that’s pursued in a vacuum.  We’re part of a larger project team, and most often that project is the creative property of someone else.  Once you’ve come up with your most alluring signature sounds, share them with your clients and let the collaboration ensue.  It’s incredibly important to realize that the creative process doesn’t end with you: it’s easy to think that your signature sounds are the best they can be when you’ve finished designing.  In fact, I find that they often get even better when I present them to the clients and they offer tiny tweaks and new creative insights. Sometimes muting one element or incorporating something else that you never even considered is the key ingredient to the perfect sound.

The Sounds

Here are a few of the original recordings I made with the help of our intern, Sam, and the signature elements that I designed using those recordings.  The recordings and designs may sound simple, but remember that signature sounds compound with each other in order to create an often nuanced and distinguishable scape for the series as a whole.  It’s the totality of all of your creative ideas that form an overall new and exciting aural aesthetic.

 

SoundGirls at Mix Sound for Film

Every year in the fall Mix Magazine presents a Sound For Film and TV conference.  Hosted at Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California, it is a congruence of the many different facets of film and television sound.  This year SoundGirls had a good showing, there was an energetic group of volunteers that braved the morning rain to register and greet the attendees. SoundGirls were attendees and even presenters.

New member Kristina Morss was excited about the wide variety of panels.  She lamented that the Animation and First Man panels were at the same time, which meant she could not go to both.  Coming from a video editing background, Kristina wanted to learn more about the sound side of post-production.  She had heard of the event from the Soundworks Collection, which also records some of the panels and hosts them on their website.

I too struggled to narrow my itinerary. Beginning with the keynote Scott Gershin, who focused on the possibilities of immersive sound, I made sure to see a sampler of different sound niches.  The Parade of Carts presented by Cinema Audio Society is always a must-see for me because each Mixer’s cart is a master class in problem-solving on set.

Parade of Carts

At the Animation Panel presented by Motion Picture Sound Editors panelist Eileen Horta promoted being bold, while she and the other panelists warned the differences between animation and live action.

Karol Urban moderated the Mixing Dialog: Audio Pipeline Panel, which followed the dialog process from location recording to final mix. You can listen to the panel Karol moderated here

To round off my day I attended the Future is Female Panel. This was the only panel with only women presenters, but that was not the focus of the talk. Each panelist is a respected composer in the industry, and each one presented a sample of their work and an explanation of their creative process.  Other panels that I missed included Composing for Video-games, The Sound of A Star is Born, Ambisonic Recording, and hands-on Dolby Atmos demonstrations.

Future is Female Panel

At the cocktail hour, there was finally time for networking.  Breakfast and lunch held similar opportunities but within a shorter time frame.  It was in these brief moments that I connected with another new SoundGirl Julie Keller, a former choreographer who is pursuing her new love of sound editing.  She told me about the panel on The Sound and Music of Black Panther, and how the design balanced between the cultural (African drums) and the futuristic. Afterward, I went to the local SoundGirls meeting and met even more amazing people in the industry.

This was my third time attending the Sound For Film and TV conference, and it keeps getting better.  The panels and talks are always insightful, and they cover many aspects of sound for film. I feel that there is almost not enough time to see all of the panels I was interested in, and there’s a lack of networking time.  I would also like to see more booths and vendors. Overall, however, I just want to see this event continue and grow. Let’s get more SoundGirls there next year!

Editors’ note: Althought SoundGirls was not involved with Mix for Film & TV Sound, we hosted an event at Sony Studios in September. You can view our panel discussion here. Moderated by Anne Marie Slack – Panelists: Karol Urban, Kate Finan, Onnalee Blank, and April Tucker

 

Career Paths in Film and TV – Highlights

“It’s ok to be wherever you are in your career. There’s no “right” way to get to certain jobs.”

SoundGirls recently held an event on Career Paths in Film and TV Sound at Sony Studios in Los Angeles. The main theme of the night was how to get past the early hurdles of a career – whether it’s trying to get started in post-production or how to build a career when you’re not where you want to be yet. The panelists were Karol Urban, Onnalee Blank, Kate Finan, and April Tucker. Anne-Marie Slack moderated the discussion.

Each of the panelists had different experiences and paths how they got to their current day careers. What was interesting is there were a lot of similarities in the lessons they learned along the way and their philosophies about work and the industry.

Onnalee used persistence and creativity to land her job on Game of Thrones.

Karol talked about the power of networking to find work. When Karol came to LA, she met with people she had connected with before she moved. Volunteering with the Cinema Audio Society helped her meet professionals she might not have had access to otherwise.

Kate talked about the importance of having experience at a professional studio for someone in the field today. There’s a lot of opportunities to work on your own (and value to learning on your own), but there are other skills needed in a studio environment. When you’re self-trained, it can be harder to adapt to the technical needs of a studio, to workflows, or even know studio etiquette.

Anne (who co-owned a post-production studio for almost a decade) said it’s good to show job history for an entry level position even if it’s not audio-related. Even if you’ve worked at Starbucks, it shows you have the work ethic and experience of working with a company.

April talked about the importance of taking jobs with good learning opportunities even if it’s not exactly on the path you want to go. April’s first studio job was assistant scheduler which allowed her to work up to machine room operator, ADR & Foley engineer, sound editor, and mixer.

The audience had a lot of questions about specific career choices, but there was a common thread: What can I do to get where I want to go with my career? The panel all talked about the importance of making connections – to get to know people and ask for advice or guidance (versus asking for work). Onnalee suggested looking for companies with a reputation for supporting women. Kate said she started her business in part because she wanted to work with and help support women in the field.

One takeaway we heard from a number of women in attendance was that it’s ok to be wherever you are in your career. There’s no “right” way to get to certain jobs. An audience member asked a great question: “What do you need to do differently now to get started than when you all got in the field?” It’s no longer about working at a prestigious facility or a major studio. You can work on great content or get credit on a show or movie that turns out to be popular or win awards. It’s always in hindsight that you can see the path.

SoundGirls would like to thank our panel:

Anne-Marie Slack, Executive of Organization Services for Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE)

Karol Urban, CAS, MPSE – Re-Recording Mixer

Onnalee Blank, CAS – Re-Recording Mixer, Formosa Group

Kate Finan, MPSE – Supervising sound editor and co-owner, Boom Box Post

April Tucker, CAS – Re-recording Mixer

We’d also like to thank Sony, Tom McCarthy, Timothy Kuzniar, Lane Burch, Gredel Berrios, Steve Urban, Jett Galindo and Jaymes Quirino of the Bakery, Bill Dannevik for filming, and our volunteers.

 

Why We Don’t Use Buss Compression

Buss compression (or mix buss compression) is a hot topic. It’s taught in audio schools, videos and tutorials, mentioned in textbooks, blogs, forums, and podcasts. For such a covered topic we rarely hear about why or when it SHOULDN’T be used.

Film/tv mixer April’s philosophy

I quit doing mix buss compression years ago for a single logistical reason: Most film and television work requires delivery of mixes and stems (dialog, music, fx, voice-over). If someone needs to edit between the mix and stems for whatever reason, it has to be seamless (other than needing a limiter on the master and maybe a small crossfade). These stems go on to have a lot of uses – foreign versions, promos, advertising, conforms/changes like airline or television versions.

Most of the music I mix is for film or tv which is a similar scenario. Music is delivered (to the mix stage) as a mix and stems of similar tracks summed together (such as vocals, strings, piano, guitars, percussion, pitched percussion, lead instruments, etc. ). Stems exist to repurpose music, also. For example, composed music may get reused in different episodes of a series but versions of different lengths. It’s easier to re-edit a music cue with stems because your reverb decays are clean, vocals are isolated from the mix, percussion is separated, etc.

I recommend anyone who mixes music to work with stems in mind. Even if a band is just making an album and not thinking about licensing or placement opportunities, it’s a simple step that will prevent major headaches and expenses down the road. If it’s time-sensitive and you can’t deliver what is needed it could mean the opportunity – and the money – goes to someone else. Twice I’ve had songwriters I recorded/mixed songs for ask for stems TEN years later because a song was placed in a film. In the digital world, there’s no guarantee your session will open, audio files won’t be missing, and plugins recalled correctly when that much time has passed (just look at .sd2 – a format that was standard at one time but won’t even open in Protools today). I now archive stems for everything I work on.

When do I use buss compression? When it has a clear purpose. Sometimes there’s a specific sound I’m looking for in a stem that can only be created with buss compression (compressing a drum kit is a good example). Sometimes I use it to help speed up dialog mixing (in instances with tight turnaround times). Buss compression can help with dialog intelligibility, too, so I might use it on an interview stem or for a news piece. In some cases, buss compression helps with DSP usage or simplifying plugins and automation – like bussing all your background vocals to an aux with processing versus a plugin on each individual channel.

On the occasions, I do use buss compression or processing I set it at the beginning of the mix, and once I’m working, I generally don’t tweak again. This is partly due to gain staging – when you make compressor adjustments it can affect the output level which triggers the buss compressor differently which means further adjusting. Compressors only get a sound in the ballpark – it takes volume automation/fader riding for nuance. It’s taken a lot of mixing with buss compression settings I don’t like to figure out what I do like.  It may seem counterintuitive to finish a mix with something that isn’t working but sometimes making a minor adjustment to a buss compressor causes as many problems as it solves. That’s one of the hardest parts of mixing – to know when to leave it be!

Music mixer Ryan Tucker shares this philosophy

After fighting with stereo buss compression for many years, I’ve mostly abandoned the practice altogether. Now, I tend to subgroup as much as possible so that my entire mix is limited to a handful of stereo faders. I often compress each with the most appropriate buss compressor and settings for that sound rather than leave all the heavy lifting to a final stereo buss compressor. This gives me more dynamic control and a more transparent compressed mix then would be achievable with only a stereo buss compressor.

Further complications with stereo buss compression present themselves when you decide to add the compressor to an already leveled mix. Compressing the stereo buss after getting the levels will completely change the mix you just spent so long tweaking thus requiring you to remix your levels into the buss compressor you just added. It is much harder to do a mix then compress it rather than to mix into the buss compressor from the beginning. Even then if you make an effort to begin buss compressing early on you may have to readjust the compressor settings to meet the requirements of any new tracks inserted. You may find that the rhythm section sounds great into the buss compressor until you’ve added all tracks and drastically increased your RMS level. And so it goes, on and on, a constant battle. Like a bowl of jello, push one end and the whole things moves around and jiggles. Better to do your dynamic reduction on individual musical parts than leave it all to the buss compressor.

On top of all the aforementioned complexities, one can’t just put any old compressor (hardware or plugin) on the mix buss! Most lack the necessary features to treat the stereo buss appropriately. For example, buss compression (or really any stereo compressor) must be very sensitive to the stereo image of the instrument or mix. Some stereo compressors reduce stereo image, create imaging unbalanced to one side or the other, or pump every time the kick or bass hits.

There are different ways designers address this. Many stereo compressor plugins implement stereo difference detection and MS techniques to avoid image steering. In addition, many implement filtering in the sidechain to reduce the low-end influence over the gain reduction circuit. This is what prevents your kick (center of the stereo field) from pumping the wide panned guitars, reverbs or whatever content is found in the sides of the stereo field. Shadow Hills Mastering compressor implements stereo difference detection along with providing a side chain high pass filter. Fairchild 670 is a little more blunt in giving the user control over center image and sides by implementing a mid-side matrix. Channel 1 becomes center image compressor while channel 2 compresses only the sides of the stereo image. This implementation requires a little more user understanding and responsibility to get things compressing correctly.

Either way, a stereo compressor may or may not call out that this implementation is taking place or how they are doing it – that it sums the side chain signals rather than just triggering off the L or R side, or the loudest side, or a sum of the sides; that gain reduction focuses on the peak or the average signal levels; that the rate of gain change is fast (ex: VCA style) or slow (ex: El-Op style); that non-user accessible filtering or EQ bumps are in the sidechain; that internally program dependant release switching is occurring, etc, etc. Just as one can’t judge a book by its cover, one shouldn’t judge a compressor by its interface.

Buss compressors exist because tracking compressors aren’t very good at compressing a mix. So, if you’re going to use buss compression, make sure it is specifically designed to be a buss compressor and to operate on stereo signals appropriately. Keep in mind, people selling compressors would rather sell two monos then just one stereo. Even though they say “Sure – side-chain two of our mono compressors on your buss”, you definitely need to take into consideration whether you should use it on your buss or whether you should do some research and find an appropriately designed unit to serve all your master buss needs.

In summary, after all of this discovery, I personally decided to move my dynamic reduction downstream, off the mix buss and onto my tracks and stems. If I use stereo buss compression at all it’s only musically reducing about 2-4 dB of gain at most, and is really just meant to glue the movement of the tracks together into a unified stereo program.

Ryan Tucker: Ryan is the owner of TuckerMix a custom music mixing service for independent artists, composers, producers, and labels. In addition to mixing music, he has served many world-class music-audio companies in software and hardware product development.

April Tucker: April is a Los Angeles-based re-recording mixer and sound editor who works in television, film, and new media. She holds both a Master’s Degree and a Bachelor’s Degree in Music/Sound Recording. April enjoys doing educational outreach such as writing for industry blogs, giving lectures and presentations. April can be contacted through her website, www.proaudiogirl.com.

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