Here is the first interview with this month’s special guest Elliot Koretz, talking about general aspects of his career.

How did you get started in sound design?

My first industry job was as an apprentice editor in the shipping room at Disney Studios. I was exposed to all types of editing (picture, music, and sound) but I was attracted to sound for not only what I saw as the ability to be very creative but for the autonomy of working independently of the director and producers who seemed to be always in the picture editors room. At Disney I met a sound editor who was also moonlighting at Neiman-Tillar, a leading independent sound house back in the day. He saw my interest in wanting to advance to editor a little quicker than what was the norm at Disney and offered to put in a good word for me there. I was offered assistant editors position and took it. While there I was first introduced to electronic editing. This was approximately 1980 and they had, as far as I know, the first system that was used for this, ACCESS. That’s really pretty amazing for so long ago. I think the first show I ever cut on electronically was a tv show, “Aloha Paradise” It was a kind of “Love Boat” on land and the sound needed was pretty straight forward fx. But I do remember one particular episode where the story line had a man who was interested in a divorced woman with a young child. The kid was opposed to this relationship and at one point bites the guy on the leg in kind of a comical manner. This lead to what I believe may have been the first “design” moment of my career. I layered a celery snap with some sort of other big crunch and………I was off and running as a designer.

After that I moved around landing at a number of post facilities for a while. I was an editor at Stephen Cannell, which turned out to be a great place to learn to cut action sequences. On shows like “The A-Team” you had a week to cut an entire reel (approx 12 min) of Dia, FX, BG’s and Foley. And inevitably you had a scene like this: Our heroes were in some sort of large vehicle, traveling pretty fast on a rough surface, being chased by a helicopter that was shooting at them. They meanwhile had constructed some sort of rapid firing gun that was shooting nails or some other projectiles……..and little to none of this could be created just straight out of the sound library.

These kinds of sequences needed multi-layered design and remember this was on film. Many units and also much of the final result of my work couldn’t be heard played together until the dub stage. On an old fashion film sync block you could only hear three or four “channels” at once. Anything wider than that and you had only your experience and imagination to visualize the combined sound.

I think doing this kind of design work way back then really helped me understand how to efficiently combine elements to get the sound I wanted.

I spent some time at Soundelux when the company was still pretty young and while there moved into cutting sound on features. (Still editing on film). I did return to tv editing and ended up working first as an editor then as supervisor on the show, “MacGyver”. It was another busy design show with the lead character always inventing something to beat the bad guys that required creative design work. After a successful first season the producers wanted to change to an all-electronic post. Soundelux at that time was not prepared for the huge investment in equipment and ultimately the show was moved to a newly created facility, Modern Sound. Over that summer they built a new mix stage, foley stage, and editing rooms using both Synclavier and 24 track editing systems. I was offered to continue as the supervisor of the show and accepted. After a very brief training period at the offices of New England Digital (the creators of the Synclavier) I jumped into the world of electronic post again.

The problems we faced were immense. This was 1986 and the technology was still in it’s infancy. There were not yet sound libraries that were “digital” and the decision was made to purchase a copy of the library of a leading sound supervisor at the time, Fred Brown. Then the issue was storage. The best we could do at the time was to digitize onto floppy discs. They could only hold a few seconds of sound each so you can imagine the challenges that caused. This was truly the bleeding edge of technology.

It was at times very exhilarating but often very frustrating to be at the forefront of this transition. There were times we struggled to achieve what was extremely easy to accomplish on film and other times we saw how cool it was to work in a non destructive environment with new tools to manipulate the sound.

After that season I moved around again to a couple of different facilities but then found what turned out to be a long-term home at Weddington Productions. The three owners at that time (Steve Flick, Richard Anderson, and Mark Mangini) were doing some of the most creative sound design anywhere. There is no question that was the turning point in my becoming a much more accomplished designer. Working with the talented people at Weddington constantly challenged me to step up my game and really think hard about what I could do to impact the movie sonically in every detail.

While there I made the full time transition to ProTools and it’s world of opportunities that cutting digitally has brought to all of us.

All these pieces of the puzzle have helped form what I do today. At Universal where myself and my crew have 5.1 editing suites and all sorts of plug in devices I reference all that experience from both the film and digital worlds when conceptualizing the design work I do.

How has been the evolution of your work and how your approach to sound has changed over the years?

Well, in some ways it’s changed dramatically and in others not so much. In a practical sense I mentioned the switch from film to digital. I really embraced it and all the flexibility it gave me while staying in my editing environment and not having to wait for a reprint of something or a specialist for processing. It’s just more efficient and much easier for me to experiment with sounds. In a more subjective perspective I think I grow after every film I do. I am a very hands on supervisor and I feel that one of the perks of being in charge is that I get to choose which elements of the project I will personally handle. I still try (time and budget permitting) to be very old school in my method. I like to pull and organize the fx and bg’s my editors will work from (I always encourage and give them the option of going beyond the pull) and give them a “cut list”. I think that method lends itself more to continuity and flow of the sound of the film. If I can’t do that then I meet with the editors, run the reels and give as much info as I can to them and review the work later. I think one of the bigger changes in my approach in recent years has been to make a concerted effort to co ordinate with the composer more. We all have been in the situation in a mix where we are fighting for the same sonic space with the music tracks. If I know where the music is working and in what frequencies and what type of rhythm I can attempt to compliment it and not fight it.

I wonder how sound design has changed the way you listen.

I think I listen and think about emotions. What are we trying to say to the audience? Like with music I don’t want to fight the dialog so I see fx, bg’s and design as a tool, sometimes very subtle other times not, to promote the directors’ vision. I listen for bridging opportunities to use sound to connect scenes. I always remember on the dub stage for the movie “Speed” Greg Landaker (not sure about spelling) the lead fx mixer suggested some great ideas to do just that. The frenetic pace of the film lent itself to fast whooshing elements to bridge cuts. It was just one more layer to make it a more finished and cohesive movie.

How has been your work with directors? any particular story on that?

You touch on a very important question. I think that just as important as my design work on the film or maybe sometimes even more important is my rapport with the director (and the picture editor as well). We as supervisors and designers need to be very politically astute and sensitive to the personalities we work with. Some clients like a “take charge guy” who they are counting on to lead the way in the sound post. Some want a person that gives them exactly what they ask for…and nothing more. I guess what I am saying is that we need to size up who we are working with and as early as possible give them what they need. As wildly creative as we are we can’t lose sight that we are a service. I don’t believe that one style will fit all.

I have been very fortunate to work with some amazingly talented directors. When people look at my resume they usually want to know about Michael Mann. In addition to working on and supervising some of his television shows I supervised and did the design work on both “Collateral” and “Miami Vice”. Michael is without question a creative genius and a visionary that has given us some amazing tableaus. The challenge is that he is so demanding of himself, often working 20 hours days for seemingly months on end and he expects his team to keep up with him at all times. I think he has his ideal of the visual and sonic harmony he wants and has little tolerance if you are not on board with him. If you understand that it makes your job less difficult. People always want to hear horror stories, the truth is that the hours were long and tough but as I was mentioning in the previous question when you understand who you are working with and what they expect of you then you as a supervisor can depersonalize challenging situations for you and your crew and keep everyone on point.

I did a film with the amazing Irish director Jim Sheridan. He was a very easygoing guy with me and my crew and regaled the dub stage with wonderful tales, as is the tradition for storytellers like him. His style was more to allow me the freedom to bring design ideas to the stage and then he would give input.

I love when a director really understands and supports what sound and sound design will bring to their film. I worked with Gavin O’Connor on the film “Miracle” a few years back. He wanted realism throughout his film. He wanted hockey players that could act as opposed to actors that could skate a bit and for sound he wanted the most realistic sounding sports movie ever. We did extensive recordings of skating and hockey crowds and then mixing with Mike Minkler and Myron Nettinga we got a terrific soundtrack. Gavin was so incredibly appreciative of the work we all did and that’s always refreshing and nice to have.

Another great collaboration has been with the director Thor Freudenthal. His name may not be familiar to everyone but I think it soon will be. He is a very talented young director. I worked on “Hotel for Dogs” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” with him. Both films presented unusual design challenges and Thor was very supportive to make that sonic space that we all hope for available in the final mix.

All these directors I just mentioned understood the value of doing field recording for their films. Whether it’s getting out to Miami and recording onboard speed boats at over 135mph (Yikes!), Directing a crowd of 5,000 people chanting “USA, USA” or dog ADR sessions (Story on that to follow), working with someone that gets the concept of what we can bring to the film by doing these things is always a bonus.

I wonder how you approach the different roles you can play on a film, such as sound designer or supervisor. Any preference?

I really enjoy them all. Unless a particular film is just too demanding a job for me to exclusively hold both titles I will try most often and handle those myself. To accomplish that I am fortunate enough to have worked with for almost ten years one of the best assistants (who also happens to be one of the best field recordists, great editor and also talented mixer) Bruce Barris. His wide range of skills allows me the freedom to be creative while he has handled some of the other aspects of the workflow. He has been an invaluable partner in the design process.

And speaking of that I do see the work we do as a collaborative effort. I am most definitely the point man with the client but it is the entire team that I count on. With the budgets so tight these days my crew is often small. Everyone has to be really capable. I try and spend quite a bit of time with each member keeping them up to date with as much info as I can.

On some of my films for one reason or another I have assumed the role of ADR supervisor as well. I do really enjoy getting the opportunity to work with the actors.

So I guess that although design is probably my favorite part of the job, as I like to say “it’s full service” and I’m good with hands on the other tasks as well.

What are your favorite tools to work with?

I think it’s rare that I use any effect out of the library without doing some sort of tweaking to it. I use quite a bit of the standard plug ins that are included in ProTools and also the Waves bundle, Izotope (particularly Trash), AltiVerb, and Speakerphone to name a few. Multiple layers of sounds addressing different frequencies are the key. I look for new plug ins and applications all the time as they are rapidly growing.

Do you have any special method for dealing with deadlines/creative challenges?

Well, that’s not very easily accomplished. It’s time management. I think one of the most important skills in that regard is having the dub stage experience to really understand what will play and what will be less important in the overall mix. Sizing up the key sequences and looking at how much time you have to spend on them is crucial. I find this does not come naturally to everyone and I help my crew know what areas to concentrate on.

Is there any of your projects that you remember for being the most challenging or favorites?

Which of your children do you like the best, eh? So hard to answer. I will pick out one but I probably could find examples in almost all my films.

A couple of years ago I did a family film, “Hotel for Dogs”. On the surface it seemed like a fairly simple movie to do. There were some Rube Goldberg like mechanical inventions to design but otherwise I didn’t at first see any challenges or possible difficulties. Was I off the mark…..by a mile. The movie had many dogs in it (it was titled Hotel for Dogs…..right?) a number of them feature performers. The conceit was that they sounded like normal dogs. Nothing comical or unrealistic in their performance. It turned out that in every single bit of production the tracks were filled with the sound of the various trainers urging on their dogs to perform with whistles, clickers, and other devices that basically made the original sound track unusable.

So now I was faced with the reality that I had to replace every single sound all the dogs made for the entire movie. There was no library in town that has such a variety and complete sets for all these dogs. I was in serious trouble until an incredibly serendipitous event occurred. Some of my crew members and I were walking to lunch. We were working at Universal and sometimes we would cut through the theme park to eat up above us at City Walk. As we walked through the park I noticed there was a stage with the sign that read “animal act”. There was a worker standing in front with a dog beside her. I told her I was a fellow employee and what I was working on and asked, “Do the dogs in the act follow commands to bark?” She assured me they did and led me to backstage to meet the trainers. Turned out they had worked on my movie and actually some of the same dogs were here in this live show. After discussing what was needed with the trainers we set up a date and brought the dogs down to the foley stage for a “doggy” ADR session. Each dog responded to silent commands and barked, whined, sniffed and growled as we recorded them. I now had my kits for each of the main dogs in the movie.

Cutting their tracks was like doing voice replacement for about eight actors throughout an entire movie. Dogs never stop making sounds. They are always panting and licking and doing something that required considerable thought. I would find the most evocative material while still “keeping it real”.

The satisfaction came that in the final product my work was truly invisible. The dog vocals fit perfectly (being from the same dog in many instances) and no one would ever suspect that what they were hearing was not production. The work did not call attention to itself but never the less was some of the best sound work I’ve done recently.

What are your favorite films for sound?

That’s another loaded question. There is such great work out there. I go all the way back to classics like “Shane” and “Forbidden Planet” as early examples. And certainly I used to try and destroy my speakers playing “Top Gun” and then “Days of Thunder” at dangerous volume levels. The work of Ben Burtt, Gary Rydstrom, Randy Thom, Ren Klyce….I could go on and on. When I worked with at Weddington the movies that we were doing, Die Hard, Apollo 13, Speed, all the Joe Dante films……..were so incredibly well done. And recently my colleague at Universal Scott Hecker has put out some of the coolest tracks (300, Watchmen, and Suckerpunch) with Chris Jenkins and Frankie Montano mixing. I thought Avatar was an incredible piece of work knowing the difficulties in having to conceptualize design when you may still be working against a storyboard. I love movies. Always been a film fan and it’s just too hard to narrow the field on my favorites.

This is a good point to mention mixers. To understand how to collaborate and help them do their job is huge. I can’t emphasis enough my belief that it’s a team effort and although I do plenty of premixing back in the editing room I love that another set of very talented ears listens to the material and can add their expertise to it. I always try and meet with the team as early as possible and include them in the process.

Is there any advice you’d like to give to other sound designers out there?

Well, I think the key is to think divergently. Outside the box. Don’t be confined by the laws of nature. That’s how little kids think and that ability seems to disappear as we grow up. I know that there are sounds that have to be exact and correct but emotional sound has a huge role in design. And the practical advise is to put your ego aside and listen to what the filmmaker is saying and present yourself in a manner that instills confidence that you are the right person for the job. One of my favorite stories that help bring that point home is this. Walter Murch and Randy Thom were participating in a forum about sound. When Randy was speaking he told a story of how when he meets with the director he regales him or her with visions of incredible design to come with all sorts of amazing nuance and the client is wowed. They know they have he right person. The the meeting ends, Randy goes into the privacy of his editing room and says to himself, “How the f*ck am I going to do it?”

So don’t let them see you sweat. Bring your best attitude to your meetings……and then go back to your room and start panicking!

Seriously, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for the opportunity to share some stories. I hope this has been informative and a little entertaining.

Here are the answers to the questions you made to Tim Walston during january. And stay tuned because there’s one more article coming from Tim about his work on Star Trek.

Designing Sound Reader: Hey Tim. Thanks for the inspiring articles! I can see you often work as editor and designer, but I’m curious about how much mixer are you? Do you think is important for an editor to learn how to mix?

Tim Walston: Please read Tim Prebble’s article on this subject – it’s brilliantly written. That said, I usually “half-mix” my own material into predubbed sub groups for delivery to the stage. This way my sounds are presented the way I intended, but with enough separation for the mixer to have control on the stage. I don’t dip for music necessarily because I rarely have the final music. My goal is to preserve my intentions and reduce the track count for the mixer – be it by bouncing down my material into multichannel mixes or delivering a session with “virtual predubs” (many tracks of units funneling into busses). I’ve been called upon to mix assembled sequences for presentation purposes, but I would not call myself a mixer.

I absolutely DO, however, think that sound designers should learn as much as they can ABOUT mixing. If you understand how the mixer does his/her work, then you can better prepare your material for the stage, and spend your time as efficiently as possible.

DSR: How do you analyze the video material before you start to designing sound to it?

TW: Well, first I watch it! Then usually there is some direction from the client or my supervisor: suggestions about style, vibe, what elements are important to focus on, etc. Next, I usually search for some material that is interesting and applicable to the project. Then it’s time to cut: put it in sync and see what works.

DSR: What are your go to microphones for on location?

TW: Just to be clear, I’m not a “location recordist” (i.e. production recordist capturing dialog & effects during filming). My recordings are field or studio recordings intended to gather sound effects or sound design material. My first rig was a X-Y stereo Audio Technica 825 and an HHB portable DAT recorder. A few years ago I bought a Sony D50 for even more ease of use and spontaneity. Both have been sufficient for my needs, although I do have access to better equipment if the need arises.

DSR: Do you prefer to record in mono or stereo?

TW: I almost always record in stereo – I’m sure that would change if I bought a really great mono mic!

DSR: Do you have any experience with tools such as FMod for encoding audio for games?

TW: No, I don’t. At the risk of alienating many readers, I have to admit that I’m personally not very focused on audio implementation.

DSR: What video editing software is most commonly used in your line of work?

TW: I’m a feature film sound designer/editor. My main audio workstation is Pro Tools. I’m not called upon to do any video editing. Although it is rudimentary, I do regularly chop the video track along with my audio tracks when conforming my work to a new version of picture. It’s very helpful to reference the cut up audio to the old picture, to keep track of how it used to work, and then repair or repurpose the sound to the new picture.

As far as I know, most video editors for film and TV use either the AVID system or Final Cut Pro. For more information on video editing (and post production job classifications) check out this article from the Editor’s Guild website:

https://www.editorsguild.com/WhatOurMembersDo.cfm

DSR: What´s the procedure, or process you do to the sound files recorded in the field, to store them in a library?

TW: It all depends on time! In a perfect world, I would record my sound effects, then import them to a computer and clean them up, and remaster them. Then I’d scan them into Soundminer and enter in lots of wonderful descriptions and notes about the recording and what the sounds might be used for, what project (if any) they were intended for, etc.

If I’m in a hurry (most of the time) I’ll record it, give it a name and start using it right away! Maybe later I’ll have time to tag it properly. Ha!

DSR: Thanks for spending the month with us. My question is only this if you wish to share it with us: What is the biggest, most costly or embarrassing mistake you have made in the field of sound design?

TW: Hmmm… most embarrassing was probably the ruined jet recording I already shared with you all. I haven’t killed a mic in the line of duty yet, thank goodness, so luckily I can’t think of any costly mistakes I’ve made.

In a creative field, it’s hard to define “mistakes”. As Randy Thom once wrote: “ A Craftsman knows how to avoid accidents — an Artist knows how to use them.” – from “On Being Creative” at filmsound.org

DSR: You mentioned in your interview that you’ve been using NI’s Kontakt as your go to sampler because it allows you to have the feeling of touching the sounds with your fingers in the same way the synclavier allowed in your early years of sound design. Do you use any hardware controllers to help with this function, such as NI’s Kore or a pen tablet similar to the Wacom Intuos (used for manipulating sound in a Kyma system)? Is there any other device you’ve come across or use that helps to efficiently manipulate sound structures?

TW: Well, you are already ahead of me! No, I simply use a MIDI keyboard with programmable MIDI sliders. As a musician, simply performing a sound effect on the keyboard, or performing the pitch changes I want, are more satisfying than trying to draw automation with a mouse. I’m sure those hardware controllers you mention are useful too, though I haven’t tried them.

DSR: It seems like with Wall-E and other animated shorts, the sound designers are brought in much earlier out of necessity, but I’m curious as to whether or not this is done very often in your experiences.  How often do you get to really work with directors?  How often are sound designers consulted for their creative input in the direction of a movie?  How do you know your work is fulfilling their expectations, and when creative liberty of a sound designer is taken, how do you present these ideas to the director?

Personally, I have not had that kind of influence at early stages of production very often. Usually, by the time our team is brought on, there is a working cut of the film. Sound work is presented to the director and editor as early and often as possible, to get feedback and specific direction. Sometimes early on, we can provide sounds to the cutting room that can help shape the audio expectations. At the very least, we will have one or more Temp Mixes, to an early version of the film, where we get to present our sounds and creative ideas. Picture and sound develop in parallel until the final mix. Access to the director is dictated by their schedule – sometimes more, sometimes less.

On some occasions, my colleagues have been asked to provide sound effects for the actors to hear and react to during shooting.

Having said all that, I’ve just started a project where the director would like the sound design to be provided to the digital animators for sync and performance inspiration. Every project is different!

DSR: Do you have any insight into digital asset management?  I think sound library programs are great, but when it comes to naming your files from recording to working with the assets, do you have any tricks, tips or insight you could give?

I used to spend a good amount of time after every show organizing the sounds I pulled from libraries into categories and folders (Explos, Fire, Whooshes, etc.) Then I would go through the sounds I’d made and make sure the names were good, enter descriptions and such into my database, and put them into folder categories as well. This special attention to my library stopped around 2003, because there was simply no time!

In those early days, I loved David Farmer’s brilliant library solution called Sound Log Pro, because it had a workflow that rewarded diligence: When you created/recorded a new sound, you switched to the database and entered a description immediately. Then a button press created a unique name based on that description and switched you back to Pro Tools. You then pasted the name on the sound and you were done – a unique and descriptive name AND a database record were all created at once. This application is no longer available, and I have moved on to Soundminer.

The most important thing for me about adding a sound to my library is: will I ever be able to find it again when I need to? Sometimes, when creating new material, I will enter my database information right at the moment the sound is made. If I’m in the heat of the creative process, however, I might not. At that point, the best I can do is name it with the most descriptive words – using the keywords that I like.

Another of David’s innovations was to have a common set of four letter abbreviations for the category of sound, and start each sound with that prefix. This keeps similar sounds grouped together (alphabetically) in the region bin. For example you might have “WIND stormy howl” and “WIND cold whistle” instead of “Stormy howling wind” or “Cold whistle wind”. He came up with ANML, EXPL, MNST, WHSH, etc., and I often use these today for Animals, Explosions, Monsters & Whooshes. Thanks, David!

I also try to organize sounds I pull into my session at the moment of transfer. I import sounds into categorized folders, inside a library folder – instead of sending them directly to my session folder. This serves two purposes. First, the sounds are organized in folders upon import and stay there – so I don’t have to do it later. Second, it means that only the new sounds I process or create are in my “Audio Files” folder, making it easier to differentiate the new stuff from existing library material.

At the end of the day, you have to find a system that works for you, and be as diligent as possible – always thinking of the future.

Thank you all for reading my ramblings this month, and for the warm and gracious responses I’ve received. It’s been fun to share some of my old stories with you. I am really gratified to think that I’ve entertained or inspired anyone. Thank you, DesigningSound readers.

Here are the answers to the questions you sent for Frank Bry. Hope you enjoyed the special as we did. Many thanks to Frank for the amazing work!

Designing Sound Reader: Would you care to share your full gear? Some recording dos and dont’s too perhaps? :) And they sound so clean! How post-processed are these samples?

FB: Thanks for the kind words. My gear consists of a Sound Devices 702 and a Fostex FR-2 for my main stand alone recorders. I mostly use the SD 702 nowadays and will use the FR-2 for a large multi-microphone session like guns or crashes. I also have a Sony PCM-D1 and PCM-D50 compact hand held recorders that I use for stealth recording and convenience. My microphones are a Sanken CSS-5, Audio Technica AT-835ST and a Sennheiser MKH-416. As far as post processing the sounds I try and keep it to a minimum. I will use a Low Cut filter sometimes on sounds that I recorded with a boom or sounds that have no frequencies below 50Hz or so. If the sound requires EQ I will use a Linear Broadband or Low Band EQ on them to see if I can fix them up a bit. For sounds that have excessive noise or were recorded in a noisy environment I will use Waves C4 just a little to help repair or sweeten the sound. For the most part my sounds are as close to the original recordings as I can get and I do employ fade ins and outs that best help the sound and remain true to the original.

DSR: What’s the oldest/first sound in your library, that you recorded?

FB: I can tell you that the sounds is no longer in my library. It was the sound of breaking glass that I recorded into an E-Mu Emax keyboard back in 1987. I was really into pink floyd at the time and loved the sound design and effects in the album THE WALL. I was working on a song I was writing and I wanted to add something to the snare sample I was using and though a sharp glass break sound might work. I was working in a spare room in this huge house and was at the top of a stairway in the large entrance hall. I was dangling a SM-57 from the top of the staircase railing down over a paper bag full of plates and glasses and dropped some of the plates into the bag. Strange way to record a sound effect but I did not have a mic stand at that moment and was working alone. That is the first organic sound effect I ever recorded, 8-bits of audio delight!

DSR: Hi Frank! Enjoying your feature so far :) Just wondering if there were any stereo configurations you were particularly fond of using in your recording, and why? i.e. with two separate mics. M/S, X/Y etc? Or do you prefer using high quality stereo mics? Thanks :)

FB: I prefer high quality stereo mics and have a CSS-5 that I really love. I have used it for over 5 years now and have learned what it can and cannot do. I do not do much M/S recording. I have thought of getting into that style of recording but so far the way I record my sounds I have not really seen the need to add M/S. My AT-835ST has a M/S mode and I have tried it a few times in the past. Maybe someday when I can find the time to evaluate the right set up I will give M/S a shot. I like both X/Y and wide recording and use either one when the situation warrants it. X/Y is my current favorite on most sound effects recording sessions. I will use the wide setting on my CSS-5 and Sony PCM-D50 for backgrounds, water, wind or anything that I feel a wide setting sounds the best. Lately I’ve been recording a lot of 192K sounds in mono with my MKH-416. I am looking into getting a new high resolution mic set up that does up to 50kHz for the 192 material that I want to record.

DSR: Loved dungeon siege! Played 1 and 2 through to the end. Can you name for me the three biggest mistakes you’ve made when out in the field recording? Thanks!

FB: 

• Mistake #1: Not recording enough source on the location I was recording at.
• Mistake #2: Not visually verifying I pressed the record button when recording some dangerous rockslides.
• Mistake #3: Not having enough battery power for the recorders. Possibly miss out on some great sounds.

DSR: If you had to choose just 5 plugins and 5 pieces of gear to work with… what would you choose?

FB: For plug ins I would choose: Waves L2 and most all the plugs they offer. Soundtoys, Eventide, GRM Tools and Izotope RX2 are my first choices. For gear I would choose my SD-702, Sanken CSS-5, Pro Tools, Peak Pro 6 and Soundminer.

DSR: I’m a sound engineering student interested to get into the world of sound design for video games. I’m thinking to start building a demo reel to show my work. What recommendations do you have for creating a demo reel? Hope you answer my question. Thanks !! =)

FB: I’m not sure I can answer this for you but I will try because I’ve never made a demo reel in the traditional sense. Most, if not all of my projects started because of people having faith in me. I come from a audio engineering and music background so the work I got was because someone heard my work or heard about me from someone who I worked with. I have done so many different things in the audio business that my demo reel would have been scattered and the length of the “Directors Cut” of a feature film.

From what I’ve seen and heard in demo reels that I got when I was at Gas Powered Games I get the sense that it is quite difficult and time consuming to make a reel. Also, I noticed that the demos were really long and had lots of clips in them. Like in the music business, I think the quicker you can cut to the chase with your reel the better. Sometimes time is an issue for the person listening or watching your demo. Get them in right from the start if you can and make a real effort to showcase who you are and what you are capable of. To me, it’s not what project you worked on but what you did on the project. Let your work speak for itself and go easy on the sales pitch. You are who you are and if the person likes your demo and gives you a shot it’s because they feel something special happening in your work

DSR: What is the essence of sound design for you?

FB: Character. How a sound makes me feel. Originality. Maybe that’s too many things. Character is most important to me. Sound to me is vibration, frequency and volume. We sense that and I think our bodies and minds react to it emotionally. I try to design sounds that give the visual image more life. This is a tough thing to do because most of the time it’s subjective or driven by what the client wants. You can usually tell when something is not working. It just doesn’t feel right. Trust your gut and go with it, see where it leads you and the project. It’s a lot like music. There are some songs that give me goose bumps every time I listen. It may sound silly but to me sound effects can do that also.

DSR: Hi Frank. Thanks for your articles this month. Only great stuff there! I see you’ve worked on some fantasy stuff, so I was wondering if you have some tips/tricks on designing sound of spells, creatures, etc.

FB: I always start out with organic material first. The spells that I have had to design were based on organic properties like fire, ice, snow, etc. There are some that are based on energy and that requires either synthetic elements or processing organic sounds. There is a lot you can do to a ice sound for example. Running ice though a chorus and crystalizer plug in always proves to be a great starting point. Reverb and other effects like delay and flanging can also turn an organic element into something fantasy based. Experiment with many types of processing and somewhere along the way you can stumble onto something cool.

DSR: Could you tell me some examples of VST chain presets you like to use in Soundminer?

FB: As shown in some of my articles I use a variety of plug-ins in VST with Soundminer. It really depends on what I’m trying to accomplish and the source file. Some are very simple like compression and pitch effects and others are more involved. I have started to use analog emulation, vintage compressor and EQ plug ins. I wish I had more vintage EQ plug ins and am in the process of getting more. When I was engineering music I was always very fond of the API 550A EQ. I once worked at a studio that had a great vintage API board and I would re-record some of my sounds through it just to get that 550A sound.

DSR: What kind of templates (Pro Tools) do you use for sound design and mixing purposes?

FB: I have many templates for Pro Tools that I use depending on what I’m doing. I have one for editing 96k and 192k sound effects that I set up a while ago. I do constantly update it depending on new plug ins that I find useful and other settings that I need to edit and master. I have other templates including a 5.1 surround template that is for sound design and the another for the final mix, fold down and output. I use a template for creating my sound effects stems that I use for cinematics. I had a variety of templates for designing either stereo or mono game sound assets. All in all I have around 30 or so templates that I have been refining over the years.

DSR: I was wondering what are the plugins or specific process that you typically use to get crunchy and big sounds. Thanks for your inspiring articles!

FB: The big secret! Most of the time it starts with the actual sound elements themselves. I can take certain sounds and pitch them down or add sub harmonics to them and with compression and heavy limiting it can get crunchy and big. I like to design sounds with other sounds instead of equalizing or other processing that can be accomplished by mixing or morphing sounds together that have specific content and emotion.

Here are the questions made by the readers and answered by our special guest Jamey Scott.

Designing Sound Reader: You said you enjoy building scenes from scratch. Where do you like to start? Background to foreground? Foreground to background?

Jamey Scott: I prefer background to foreground. Frequently background stuff gets discarded as mixes get bigger, but I like to have it to work with.

DSR: How heavily baffled is your ADR recording room? Is the ideal space for ADR a completely dead room, or do you like having reflections in it for options?

JS: My ADR room is relatively small with 702 fiberglass on the walls and a cloth covering, so reflections are minimized. There’s a window, but I usually have it covered with a thick curtain to eliminate bounce. My ADR recordings don’t have any reflection problems and there is no “room sound” in them, so I think it’s a better way to go for flexibility rather than having a built in sound. You can always give it color later but you can’t take it out, so it’s important to record as dry as possible, in my opinion.

DSR: Which type of mouse do you use? Are you a trackball or classic mouse user? How do you mix string swells and emotional music where you “feel” your way through the faders with a mouse?

JS: I just use a regular old optical mouse.. $9.95 @Frys. I’ve tried to get used to trackballs as a lot of friends swear by them, but I never could. When I make fader moves with music, I use the virtual faders in ProTools and just move them up and down with the mouse. Frequently though, I get better results just tweaking the automation envelopes.

DSR: What’s your favorite compressor/EQ in Pro Tools for dialogue mixing?

JS: For dialog, I normally use the Digi EQ7, though I’ve been known to use Filterbank quite a bit too. Just depends on the sound of the source and what I’m going for. For compression, I use very transparent things in general, such as the Waves Rcompressor and MV2. I try to stay away from compressors on film dialog as I generally prefer a traditional sound but in games, it’s sort of unavoidable, so I try to use things like MV2 which brings out the lower stuff a little more gracefully than a brute compressor.

DSR: What is your favorite noise reduction plug-in or hardware for reducing background noise for dialogue tracks?

JS: I just love Izotope RX2. It’s freaking magic.

DSR: Do you have a track limit for the amount of sounds you combine for a sound design element?

JS: Limit? No. Whatever it takes, right? I’ve never exhausted my primary HD3 system on a single serious of sounds, if that’s what you mean.

DSR: What sort of word clock or synchronization do you use with your Pro Tools I/Os?

JS: I clock and redistribute through an Apogee Big Ben off of my SyncIO. I have a lot of systems to sync so I need that extra distribution source.

DSR: What sort of outboard gear do you own and use often, if any?

JS: I’ve pretty much eliminated all of my outboard hardware over the years. I used to have so much, but as new plug ins come out and I get comfortable using them, I generally phase out the hardware equivalents and just end up donating them or selling them. I still keep some FX boxes around like my TC Fireworx which has some things in it that I haven’t been able to replace with plugins yet, but I’m sure that eventually it’ll go away too. Makes a great D/A converter anyway :)

DSR: Do you use any type of mastering or “sweetening” on your film or video game mixes?

JS: I have a last pass mastering stage on my primary mix bus that I use on everything. It includes the Waves 360 plugs that I use for bass management and crossover points. I also do a last pass limiting stage here. However, I don’t ever compress or anything like that on my master. I know a lot of music mixers do that, but I find it introduces an uncontrollable variable and I don’t like that. I try to maximize my dynamic range and I do that with disciplined mixing instead of compressors.. takes a little more time, but it’s worth it.

DSR: Do you cross-check your mixes on any other types of systems or alternate sets of speakers in your mix room?

JS: I only really mix 5.1, so that limits the venues that I can test in. I do however, have 2 home theater systems in my house that I sometimes check on. I’ve also taken a lot of my predubs to mix on studio stages over the years so I’ve become pretty keenly aware of where my system’s strengths and weakness’ are. I’ve been working in my room and speakers for almost 8 years now, so any time you mix on a system with that amount of frequency and time, you know how your mixes are going to translate and I’ve certainly gained that perspective over time to the point that I don’t really need to reference check. I do to satisfy client curiosity, but that’s about it.

DSR: What do you use to monitor iPhone games you sound design? Do you have a way of loading the sounds onto the phone and playing them back as if you’re playing the game?

JS: Heh… yeah, I email myself the sound and then play it through the phone. Very unsophisticated, but it works :)

DSR: Even when you are designing and mixing a film or video game by yourself, do you still pre-dub or do you mix in a session with all of the elements so it’s easy to go back and forth from the units as opposed to going back and having to open pre-mix sessions to change something?

JS: Good question. Every mix situation is different. You should check out the workflow tutorial I recorded for this feature series as I talk about that quite a bit. To sum up, for small mixes, I create ballparked stems and then mix them in a master stem session. For larger mixes, I mix on 2 machines and have all of my tracks live, stemming out to a dubbing recorder. If my clients want to mix on a stage, I do a very advanced predubs and rent a stage pretty much just for sanity check, but I rarely rent out stage time for builds and predubbing. It’s a waste of money, and my studio translates extremely well, so there’s really no need.

DSR: How do you archive your projects once you’re done? What type of long-term backup media are you using for your projects? Do you back up your projects as you’re working on them and what type of storage do you have?

JS: I have a NAS system connected to my network which has mirrored, hot-swappable drives. My systems back up nightly using ChronoSync, but when a project is completed, I optimize the sessions, get rid of the junk, and then back them up to two drives, one I keep in a safe deposit box, and the other in a vault at my studio. I keep them indefinitely because you never know.

DSR: What program or software do you use to handle picture and timing changes?

JS: I’m still doing it old school style, reading off an EDL. I’ve yet to use software that does it reliably and because I automate things on my master busses which don’t get included on region checks, I have to move them by hand anyway so until I’m fully convinced that a software solution can do it reliably, I just do it manually or I have an assistant do it.

15. I asked Aaron Marks this one when he was interviewed here, but I’d like your opinion as well. Do you find that the video game industry is moving toward specialization, i.e. hiring certain people only for GUI sfx and other people only for weapon sfx, etc. or do you find the industry prefers the “one-stop shop” for sound effects, hiring one person/team for the whole package?

JS: I think it varies based on the scope of the games that the developers are doing. For smaller, handheld games, I say one-stop-shops are the way to go. Saves money, employs guys for a long time, and everyone’s happy. For AAA console games, it’s advantageous to split it up to get the best guys working on the best aspects. Sometimes devs have many people attack the same aspect and let the game designer listen to all of the concepts and then determine which way is the best way to go. I see a lot of that these days and although it has the potential to create a schizophrenic sound concept, it can certainly be beneficial by providing a large palette of options. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to predict trends and patterns but the truth is, every developer is going to evolve into a system that works for them. For some it’s contracted out, others want it all in-house. There are no rules and you should use that knowledge to empower yourself to do what you want, how you want it done. I hated depending on company budgets to determine what kind of gear I used, so I decided to build a kick ass mix stage and work from home and that’s what I did. There will always be developers who will give you a chance to prove your worth in whatever form you’re offering it, so create a plan for yourself, and when the time comes to offer what you’ve got, be sure you can back it up and make your clients keep coming back for more of it. That’s how it’s done… trends be damned!

DSR: Related to the question above but do you see that changing in the future, 1, 5, 10 years down the road?

JS: I’ve only experienced the game industry in an upward momentum. There were a few down times but in general, the game industry has grown immensely over the past 20 years. It’s taking over the sphere of media influence that most of us hoped for a long time ago but never really imagined could really happen. If my kids are any example, they’d rather play a video game than see a movie or watch tv 9 times out of 10. Same with all of their friends. So that’s the generation that will determine future demand of media and my sense is that games will dominate from here on out. Eventually, movie making may evolve into an interactive form and regain some ground, but I think it’s pretty clear that the medium itself is going to have a hard time competing with interactive entertainment. That said, I think the 10 year forecast for games is pretty bright. I think games will become more ambitious both artistically and theatrically and there are going to be some incredible opportunities for hip and innovative sound people. I can’t predict what form that will be in, whether it will be specialized, in-house, contracted, or whatever, but I have my plan and that is to keep on doing what I’m doing, learn as much as I can, and keep pushing to improve both personally and as a contributor to the larger picture.

DSR: Also, I notice recently there’s been quite a rise of small-scale SFX libraries popping up, a number of which are highlighted here on Designing Sound. Do you find these being used more and more, or are the large cover-all libraries still the standard? Similarly, what sort of percentage of SFX do you create for an average game? Is it more or less than in film?

JS: I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer this questions because I specialize in custom solutions and signature sounds. I’m mostly hired for the things that need to sound unique or give a game a signature sound so I use library material in a very limited way. As a sound worker, it’s great to have a big library and know where everything is, but as a sound designer, you’re more of a craftsman and library is just one tool in your quiver. I would not say that there is anything standard anymore. Games that use the same old tired sounds get clobbered in the reviews, so you really need to bring a more exciting and innovative game to the table if you want to work as a game sound designer.

DSR: Lastly, do you have any creative ideas for how to get into the industry when you don’t live in any of the “big” cities a la LA, Seattle, NYC? For example, I live in Minneapolis and will have to remain here for a few more years and I’d really like to start establishing myself but don’t have anywhere near the opportunities, at least in the video game industry. Are there any good ways to get a hold of small games developers, like a “gamasutra” of little guys. Thank you very much for taking the time both to interview and to answer!

I recently hired an assistant who lived in the north midwest area. He basically attended engineering school and then moved out to LA and hit me up for an internship. He proved his worth as an intern so I hired him and now he’s my right hand man on a AAA game. It ultimately comes down to your skills and your professionalism. You can find opportunities as a remote freelancer for small things like iPhone games. That’s actually pretty easy these days as there are so many game developers and the audio needs aren’t tremendously demanding. You should really focus in on what you do best, demonstrate it and then hustle to get work and impress potential clients. Eventually you’ll either land a job or a client or something that starts to open more doors for you. Persistence is rarely unrewarded.

DSR: Hey Jamey. First thing. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. Second, I’m interested in knowing more about the way you use QuicKeys in your daily work (I’m also a big fan of this program). Thanks in advance!

JS: My pleasure! I’m glad that there is an audience for this stuff. I use quickkeys for anything that I would have to otherwise do repetitively. For example, if I have a bunch of files that I need to separate with a gap on a time line, I’ll create a quickkey sequence which selects the region, nudges it by a set amount, selects the next region, and then loop it by a specified number. Saves tons of time. Also for keys that I find ergonomically confounding, like zoom…I use that more than anything so having to reach across the keyboard for it just won’t do. I assign my control-z and control-x for that so that it’s right under my left hand at all times. There’s tons of them and I frequently make them on the fly to avoid repetitive gestures.

DSR: As a Sound Designer do you also have to work with software such as Fmod to organise and code your audio or is that done by someone else? A lot of games now use the real-time processing of audio do you try and record everything as dry as possible?

JS: There’s a significant distinction between “sound designer” and “technical sound designer”, which deals with sound design from the implementation aspect which is becoming significantly more prevalent these days with the new middleware packages. I am not an ace at these programs but I have designed many custom game audio engines that have similar functions that these programs excel at so I have a great grasp of the underlying concepts. I’ve sort of steered my career towards a creative content provider so the more I work doing that, the less likely I am to have the opportunities to get really deep with these programs. I like doing that kind of work, but it’s just not where I’m at in my career at this point. As far as how dry I create my source, I generally have some sort of ambience in most of my sound. I use ambience to define a global character to the sound of a game or film. I’m not talking about long reverb tails as game engines are getting really good at that now and it’s a waste of memory to have long tails on sounds, but in terms of the actual character of a sound, I definitely use early reflections and I even use specific frequency feedbacks and buildups to my designs for interesting colors.

DSR: Let’s say you get a new video game to work on, what kind of visual do you receive? Screenshots, unrendered or rendered cinematics, a pre-built alpha version of the game? Do you automatically have to send your files to the programmer or you have a sandbox to test them quickly in an environment that is interactive? Great articles. Thanks a lot.

JS: Every situation is different. When I’m an audio director, I get daily builds of the games and I stay involved on a daily basis here at my facility. When I’m sound designer, I usually get movies of ingame events that I create sound to and then I mock up how they should sound when implemented. When I do concept designs for things that aren’t in the games yet, I work from sketches or even audible descriptions, so it spans the possibilities. I recently created cinematic soundtracks for Risk Factions off of a script which was then animated to after the audio production was complete!

Photo by "Jean H. de Buren"

Here are answers to the questions you sent to David. Many thanks for the amazing support during this month! It was awesome!

Designing Reader: I have lots of questions. David is a hero of mine. How do you organize your editing sessions? In what way do you find is the best way to organize your tracks – i.e. do you use track naming conventions, track colors, region colors, etc. etc.

DF:

Track Colors – Only to denote elastic audio tracks. I color all my elastic audio tracks the same color just so I can quickly tell which ones are elastic.

I begin with a session that has about 5 premixes.

Each set of premix tracks is bussed to its own 5.1 bus.

I have a master fader for each 5.1 bus, and I start with this pulled down -6 or so. A lot of unnatural dynamic squashing occurs when tracks get summed/combined out the same bus. But if you have the bus on a master fader and it is lowered so it never clips, you can prevent this.

Each 5.1 buss also comes up on its own aux track, so I can then SEND that buss to a record track if needed. (Master Faders don’t have sends, so I use Aux tracks here.)

Each Aux track is output to a master 5.1 summing buss, for the composite 5.1.

DSR: Do you acoustically treat your cutting room?

DF: Yes, mainly to prevent slap reflections, or anything that might cause phasing errors. I’m extremely sensitive to phase problems, so I’m a stickler for speaker distance from my head. However using Waves 360 across my monitoring outputs makes it a lot easier to set up a better monitoring environment. You can delay each channel, and also adjust levels, etc. Just make sure this is on your monitoring outputs ONLY, and that you never record or bounce anything that has gone through the setup or the phase and levels will be all out of whack.

I always find the low end from room to room to be the worst set up, and I always have a hard time trusting low end when I’m working in a new room.

DSR: How much time did you have to rework the Ringwraith scream and the dog snarl sounds in LOTR?

DF: Fortunately, there was time. The wraiths were more stressful because they were a major character rework. The Warg sounds were mostly approved in the attack sequence, so they weren’t a complete overhaul like the wraiths were. I can’t remember for sure about the wraiths, but I’d say there were at least a couple of weeks??? I came down with a nasty flu during that time too and missed a couple of days. I was certainly addressing other things during that time, but it wasn’t an overnight redo. Also, the wraiths evolved over the trilogy. There wasn’t enough material generated in FOTR to carry us through all three films, at least without repeating myself too much. So that was nice. I got to revisit them each time, saving the approach I liked from before and expanding on it with other approaches, and new source. By the time we got to ROTK, almost all of the human elements were my voice. I did re-use wraith screams from FOTR though, for continuity’s sake.

DSR: How do you decide a premix or mix is finished? What is your gauge or method you use to sign off on a project?

DF: I wish there was a better answer for this, but quite often it’s when time has run out. Occasionally, things just flow and I’m content with what we’ve got printed early on. It’s an art form, yes, but there’s a business behind it that allows us to dabble in this art form. We have to keep a level head and weigh both sides and keep things moving.

DSR: What is your method of going about fixes on the dub stage?

DF: Ideally, I’ll go off to my design room and do a fix offline. That way, the mix can keep rolling on other things and not wait on me. I have more of my tools (plug-ins & library, most importantly) available in my design room. Most of the time, the editing station on the stage is just that, an editing station. If I’m being asked to do something interesting, then I generally need more tools than the stock Pro Tools install.

DSR: What determines if you will do field recording as opposed to searching a library?

DF: Generally, I record anytime I don’t have something I need, or if I don’t want to use the same source again. Time and content are obviously a factor too. There are some things in my library that I have so much of, there’s little point in recording more, as the likelihood of getting something new is so slim it’s not worth the effort or time.

DSR: For the Urukhai and the fire Demon of Moria, how did they not end up being mud? How did you create that much bass and low-end without it turning out muddy?

DF: The Uruk-Hai and Balrog were two entirely different approaches design-wise. The Balrog low end was largely due to worldizing in the tunnels in New Zealand. In a sense, it was reverb, albeit a natural real room reverb. We were also given that luxury by where the the scenes took place. Most of the time, it was inside, in the mines of Moria, which lent itself to having large cavernous reverbs. The Uruks were mostly tigers, at least the ferocious fighting elements and tigers have a solid low end that sit alongside an incredibly ragged (in a good way) mid-range.

Honestly, more low end is the note I still get more than any other, and it drives me nuts. Not because it’s difficult to do, quite the contrary – it’s really easy. A subwoofer only reproduces a small range of frequency, and all it takes is to edit in, or generate that using a dbx120, Lo-Air, or Lowender. What drives me crazy is that it’s a “cheap” fix. We can’t get away with booming everything under the sun. So I generally try to get the energy across without the boom track first. You also can’t count on the boom working correctly in every (oh, let’s face it – hardly any) theaters. If we rely on the boom to make our point, we’ll miss making the point in many venues.

DSR: Do you have a special mouse/keyboard setup that you use? QuickKeys? Multi-button input device?

DF: For years now, I’ve been using a Kensington Export Mouse Pro (trackball). It’s funny how some people are trackball people & some mouse people. I’m hands-down a trackball guy. Until earlier this year, I had the Pro Tools Trimmer, grabber, and Selector tools assigned to buttons on the trackball, and it’s super fast to change tools that way. I’ve been forcing myself to use the smart-tool for the past few months. It’s just so frustrating to try to do anything in Pro Tools on the stage, when I’m so used to my trackball & button assignments. I’ve grown accustomed now to the Smart Tool, though it’s not as precise and directed as when I choose specific tools.

And I’m a Quickeys junkie. Some people are clickers and others key punchers, and I’m a key puncher. I can’t imagine working without them. Even if just to call up Audiosuite plug-ins…

DSR: Do you keep a reference mix or Pro Tools session or notes or anything to remind you what elements you used for things? Like the Ents in Lord of the Rings or other awesome effects you have done in the past to remind you for something you may have in the present or future that is similar that you want to have a similar sound for?

DF: Not as much anymore, but in the old days, I was ludicrously anal about saving session copies for every designed sound. I got in the habit after doing a lot of work for Charles Deenen. He’d ask for revisions on a certain sound, and to make sure I COULD address revisions correctly, I’d save a Pro Tools session with the exactly same name as the sound file. At the time though, my entire library was stored as split stereo files, and I was always referencing the files in their original location. For several years now I’ve stopped referencing original, and instead spot sections of file using Soundminer, and making new files. This makes it easier for me to archive shows and be sure I have all the used audio, but I don’t always have every piece for every session available, all the time.

I’ve also converted large portions of my library now to be interleaved. So, even though during Rings I did save off copies of sessions used to make pretty much every file I made, they’re not relinkable now as the audio doesn’t exist in the correct format anymore. About a year ago, I spent a great deal of time, relinking & archiving sessions. I got all the way back to King Kong, and was able to save off copies of sessions with audio. It was disheartening, though, to find I couldn’t do that with most of the LOTR sessions.

DSR: What was the funnest movie you have worked on so far? What was the most difficult movie you have worked on?

DF: I’m going to say Fellowship of the Ring for both of these. I was a huge fan of the books so it was a lot of fun to be involved with that, and especially since all the other areas of the production were done so well. All the pieces are connected, and the direction was good, the cinematography, picture edit, acting, music….. It was all top notch, and that makes us sound better too. It was difficult for the same reasons. There was a lot to live up to.

DSR: Hey Dave, first of all i’m an immense fan…watching the appendices to the LOTR DVDs has very literally been my introduction into sound design and reading about the techniques and ideas used to create the lush, immense sound-design track for the films have sparked my love for sound design. I’ve read how you relished your time at Full Sail in Florida and have been going down the track of the certificate program education (living in Florida, I’m thinking very seriously of Full Sail). I hear a lot of criticism concerning for profit education yet I feel like in an industry such as post production and sound in general, there is much less emphasis placed on your degree/alma mater than your abilities and portfolio. I read countless stories of people that had no formal training and simply learned by “doing it”. How important was your time at Full Sail in learning your craft? Did you ever feel shunned for not having a more formal education (not that Full Sail isn’t “formal”, im just referring to an accredited program versus a non accredited one). Would you, in general, encourage someone to pursue a less formal educational approach to post production trades such as sound design/production from national programs/certificate programs such as full sail and the art institute? Just to clarify, when i say non accredited, i’m referring to 4 year universities that are REGIONALLY accredited as opposed to full sail which is NATIONALLY accredited.

DF: My path included Full Sail. IMO it was a critical piece of the puzzle for me, but everyone has a different path. I tell this to all prospective students. The school provides the tools to learn, the rest is up to the student. If a student takes the courses and forces getting their money’s worth, then they can get a LOT out of it. In the working world, people don’t usually have time to train noobs up. At school, it’s the teacher’s JOB to train you, or at least teach you those things one doesn’t know. I was a super gung-ho student & wouldn’t let things go that I didn’t understand. I really did get my money’s worth, and that’s why I can say it was such an integral part of my path. I’d have been lost without it. The flip side is, it’s a lot more costly now than when I went. One of the dangers with spending that much money is the pitfall that a student might expect the school to do more than it can (or that its purpose is). Even when I went, I saw people that thought the school “owed them a career” after all they paid for the course. That’s a recipe for failure. The student has to take responsibility for what they get out of the school, and for whatever happens next. Having said that though, Full Sail does (or certainly DID when I went) make the tools available.

Shunned for not going to a 4-year school? Never. Schooling is not the issue. Only experience, ability, and job performance matters. Proper schooling pretty much helps you to not fail when you get your shot. But no one is going to hire someone to, say design their film, based on what school they just came from. In my case, I thought I knew a lot when I graduated, and I did know a LOT more than when I started – a LOT more. But when I started interning, it was another world. It was like a relay race and getting the internship was simply passing the baton. If I hadn’t had the schooling, I’d have dropped the baton. But fortunately, I was able to grab the baton & keep running. But make no mistake, there was a LOT of race left…..

DSR: “Yay” for Full Sail! Class of 2005 here. I’d like to hear how your time was there as well. Personally, I’m glad I attended.

DF: Arguably the best year of my life.

DSR: Hi David, I’ve read Erik Aadahl using the Altiverb with SFX as IR, like you mentioned in your previous article (loading a thunder clap). Erik apparently used a metal ratchet on a voice or a glass ding for a voice in the ice cave of “Superman Returns”… I’ve looked into the “Altiverb IR Processor” to import and convert an effect as IR but didn’t succeed. I got some good results with the IR-1 from Waves just doing a drag and drop but I’d rather use the Altiverb. Could you explain a little more in detail about this process? Thanks a lot!

DF: Easy! No need to use the Pre-processer. The good folks at Audio Ease just let you use split stereo SD2 files. Just put a folder in your IR folder, and export split stereo SD2 files to that folder. Youi’ll need one folder for each IR you want to make. Then inside Altiverb re-scan your IR folder. Done.

But be patient. Not many sounds work well as IR’s. Just try a lot of different things & you’ll find some interesting sounds. Watch your monitor levels though!!! A real IR has a very short impact at the head followed by a tail. Most sounds I tried were very loud because the transient part at the head was always too long. Just keep your volumes low while exploring this.

DSR: Hi David! I’ve been a fan of yours ever since watching the behind the scenes footage of the LOTR trilogy. During my studies I worked on a LOTR fan film (www.bornofhope.com) which took me back to the saga and must say it was fun revisiting the films and studying the sound design in the film. Anyways, one of my questions was regarding your use of FX as a sound designer. Do you create for example reverb or delay sends in your sessions to work with and how do those then move over to the dub stage. Are you printing all FX to tracks or does the dubbing mixer take your material and reverbs and translate that using more expensive effects units?

DF: I do not set up sends to my own reverb auxes, for any edit sessions that are going to a mix. Even if the session is being mixed all in Pro Tools, generally the mixer wants to set up their own chain & reverbs and the reverb I do deliver depends on the situation. If I’m comfortable enough that the reverb is correct, I’ll marry it to the sound. However there are plenty of situations where it’s not appropriate to do that. If the original sound needs to be placed anywhere other than pretty hard Left & Right, it’s best to print a 100% wet reverb file alongside the dry original, so both can be placed correctly. If you marry the reverb to the sound, you pretty much tie the mixers hands with what can be done. I’ll give an example. In FOTR, when Pippin knocks the skeleton down the well, we had recorded most of that debris in the tunnels, and lots of pieces at some distance. When that was mixed, it needed to pan around and sound like it was coming from different locations. That became a difficult sell because when the “source” sound got panned, the reverb moved around with it.

DSR: Hello David, Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience. I would really love to learn about the process in which you develop monster/creature vocalizations. How do you connect various sources and elements and make them sound as one. I would also love to know which sound design tools do you like to use for making organic sounds. Thanks.

DF: I think the trick is the same for many types of design and not just creatures. I look for elements that are from entirely different ranges, so they don’t mask each other, but can complement one another. Actually, I try to layer as few things together as I can get away with. This makes the composite more natural, and less likely to sound like multiple things put together. Also, using less elements prevents as much cross-pollination (less shared) of sounds between creatures.

As far as organic goes, I stay away from modulation & synthesis (obviously), but even granular synthesis. The simpler the better for organic. McDSP’s “Analog Channel” has been very good to me, and remains an important part of my processing chain.

DSR What would be the treatment for a foley to make it sound like it’s produced underwater? Would you use any convolution techniques for that? and if “yes”, how would you create that impulse?

DF: Underwater is one of those sounds where films have completely misled the audience. We expect underwater sounds to be very dark, and almost dreamy, whereas actual underwater sounds are much more hyped in the high end than sounds traveling in air. If you’re going for the traditional underwater sound, then the first thing you’ll have to do is roll off a lot of the high end frequencies.

DSR: David I love your work but I´m just wondering about one thing. In the field recording special you said regarding the si-crows: “if someone hears a sound that they’ve heard before, even if they don’t realize it, the wrong sound can take them right out of the movie experience…” Thats what´s happening to me every time I watch LOTR and “The Wilhelm” comes in(or any other movie where this sound is featured). Is this to keep up the tradition or why do you keep on using this sound over and over again…

DF: The Wilhelm is a great example of how a familiar sound can yank the audience right out of the experience. This happens to me every time I hear it. I considered that when we were talking about using it in FOTR. Its use, or rather over-use, had already become borderline “too recognizable”. It was approaching that line, but IMO hadn’t crossed it yet. We wanted to use it more as an homage, rather than considering it the best sound for the job. We knew it could potentially backfire, so we let Peter choose. I think it was who Ethan that had a quicktime video showing most of the incarnations, including Star Wars, Raiders, Toy Story, and others. We showed that to Peter so he’d know exactly what it was and he loved it! He was all for it so it was decided to put it in. If we were building the films today, I don’t think it would even get a consideration. Its use has gotten way out of control.

DSR: I’m taking a year off high school and trying to make the most of it. I’m working at a community radio station, doing my own recordings and doing as much reading as I can. I really feel I’m making progress every day. My question is. What can I do to get ahead? I’ve asked several professionals and semi-professionals, and they all say “Just keep doing it” but, that’s not a very satisfying answer. So I’m going to be really specific on what type of answer I want. I work really hard to get an interesting recording, and I tinker with mastering, but when it comes down to it, putting hours into a recording, doesn’t make me more knowledgeable about things like what’s happening when I use an effect, or what bit rates mean, ect. I take lessons from a man I met when I did my senior thesis on recording in highschool which really helps, and I tried doing recordings every day, but my setup takes so much time to setup and deconstruct that it was taking an hour to do a minute of recording. I don’t really do any thing except stray recordings now and then, and I’m not much of a recording musician which makes recording songs hard. I don’t have very good equipment which severely brings down the quality of my recordings, and I’m not going to attend a college until next fall,so, what do I do in order to keep learning and building skills with what little I have? I have a million different questions, but right now, I feel that this one is the most urgent for me

DF: There’s a lot of info there, and I apologize but I’m not sure what parts are the question. If I’m reading it right, you can use only your existing equipment, which you say isn’t very good? I would recommend getting a handful of the proper tools. Without them it would be like trying to learn to play drums on a banjo, or build a house with a screwdriver and a pair of scissors. The good news is, these days you can get some pretty serious tools for very little money. When I started, you’d want a Synclavier – $100,000, plus video & multitrack equipment – probably another $30,000. Then along came Pro Tools and people could start to work from home for about $20,000. Now for about $500 you can be recording and editing – at least the basics. Interfacing with other people and extra processing, etc., all starts adding to the cost. But you can get started on your own time, at least training yourself, pretty cheaply.
IMO there is no shortcut to experience, which is as the others have said, to just keep doing it. To learn ABOUT bit rates, effects, and all that sort of jargon, a school like Full Sail was just what I needed for that kind of knowledge. I don’t know what the end result is you’re going for (i.e. – where you want to be and do), but one thing you can do if you want to learn Sound Design, or sound for picture, is:

1) Pick up a Sony M10 recorder, as well as a windscreen for it at – gigwigwindscreens.com. Recording things won’t get any easier than that.
2) Grab a copy of Pro Tools LE (this is by far the widest used platform – it would be a great benefit to know how to use this). I’d get one of the interfaces that has inputs (i.e. – not an mBox Micro) for flexibility down the road.
3) Pick clips of movies you like, and make your own sound effects to those pictures. Then compare what you’ve done to the film’s released track.

Harry Cohen referred to one of my old tricks, to “learning licks off a record”. He was referring to that trick guitarists used which was to listen to a solo over & over again & practice playing it until they can copy it not for note. I used to do the same sort of thing, but I’d sample in sounds I liked from my favorite films, like an explosion. I’d put that sound in sync with what I was working to, then I’d analyze that sound & try to re-recreate it from my own sounds, until I could remove the sound I was copying and no longer miss it. I learned a lot of tricks that way.

DSR: Hi David. Have you ever tried to record a loud impact sound in a recording studio & found the recording to be small & unimpressive compared to an outdoor recording of the same action?  If so, do you have any techniques for recording more powerful sounding impacts indoors?

DF: Impacts and loud transient sounds typically need an environmental space for sound to bounce off of. An exaggerated example would be a gunshot in an anechoic chamber. It would just be a short bright loud pop. What makes a gunshot interesting is the trail, and the same with thunder. Of course there are subtleties in gunshots too that differentiate them without the trail, but I’m just trying to exaggerate a point. What makes them most interesting is the way the environment reacts to the initial sound, and we interpret it all as one event, just by association. So where an anechoic chamber would steal the character of a gunshot, so can close micing an impact steal its character. There’s no great trick to puling that off, but I’d make sure not to mic too close. It’s tricky to do that indoors, as you wind up with a boxy/roomy sound pretty quickly. Things also play in a mix a bit better when they’re not so close mic’d.

DSR: Treebeard in a Land Cruiser!?! Who knew? Did you actually choose to use those worldized recordings? I think this was before Izotope RX… how much clean up did you do on your field recordings? Or did you leave them a little dirty for reality’s sake? Thanks so much for sharing!

DF: Yes, we did use those, but they were used more for the animalistic part, and for the wild ents. As far as clean up goes, sometimes I do leave dirty messy things in the sound as taking those out can sometimes strip the life out. This is where working on a linear sequence (film style as opposed to video game on-demand events) has an advantage. In a linear form, sounds will go by only once, so we can get away with some messy elements. In the King Kong extended version, there was an encounter with a Triceratops. Some of the animal sounds I wanted to use were those of a bull at a rodeo, but there was a little cowbell in the recording. This was before Izotope RX so the only way I had to get rid of the cowbell would have been to edit it out, and that would have stripped the vocal element of most of the character I wanted. So I went ahead and tried the scene, cowbell and all. As it turns out, the people that were encountering the Triceratops had a lot of metal items with them like lanterns, etc.. Fortunately, the cowbell sound wasn’t a perfect cowbell, but more just a metallic knocking. WIth all the other mayhem in that scene, the extra bit of metal in the vocal didn’t hurt one bit, and our brains connected it with any number of other things we might have seen on screen.

There’s a video of it here.

Insert “We need more cowbell!” joke here…… ;)

DSR: Hey Dave, just two questions: You mentioned using a schoeps M-S rig out in the field. I was wondering especially with your animal recordings, do you tend to record animal vocals with a cardioid much like a vocal in order to capture more air around the animal or do you zero in with a hypercardioid to cut out unwanted elements like cage rattle, hoove movement, handler noise, etc? Obviously there seem to be pros and cons to either. Which do you prefer?

Also a Synclavier question: If you had another Synclavier or something like it where would you see it being most useful with your current set up? Or have you come so far with the modern technology that you would be hard pressed to find a use for it?

DF: All my Rings animals were recorded as 2 channels of mono. I used a 416 on one channel and one half of a Schoeps CMXY on the other. I wound up using the 416 side in my design, almost every time, not because of the shotgun isolation but because of the aggressive character the 416 has. It has this ragged (nice ragged) midrange that I just love. The CMXY is a great stereo mic, and it’s what you see in that little softball-sized Rycote, in the recording videos and other photos. It’s a great sounding mic, but when recording FX, a lot of times I do want that shotgun side. MS gives you the best of both worlds, and when decoded to XY, it sounds every bit as good as an XY recording to me. Tim Nielsen had a Schoeps MS rig on FOTR, and we did some tests between our two rigs. I was satisfied with how his MS decoded into XY. It wasn’t until after ROTK, though, that the disk based recorders became readily available. I was pressing Sound Devices for a 722 for ROTK, but it was just vapor-ware at that point – nowhere near ready. Man, would it have saved me some time, though. Anyhow, when the 722 came out, I also wanted an extended range mic, so my MS Rig goes to 40khz. Actually, it’s just the shotgun side as I don’t think there’s a figure-eight capsule that is extended. I had such great luck with the 416, I was reluctant to switch to the MS, but the new Mic proved itself on more than one occasion, to the point my 416 is all but retired.

Synclavier? If I could hook one up to my library and have Soundminer export sounds to it like I currently do to Pro Tools, I would definitely be interested. I haven’t touched a Synclav in about 13 years, but there are still times where I wish I had one so I could get back into those performance based moves.

DSR: Cool videos, thanks David! Just a quick question. Why do you prefer polyphonic over varispeed? I usually use varispeed as it more or less emulates tape based time stretching and to me it holds up better. I am just curious as to what pros polyphonic offers you in your work flow. Thanks!

DF: Varispeed changes the pitch as well as speed and that’s not what I’m after. If I was using only the global stretching/contracting for the entire region, then this wouldn’t be AS much of an issue. But when using and moving the warp markers, varispeed jumps to different pitches depending on where the marker gets moved, and I don’t want my sounds jumping around in pitch. The same thing is happening in Polyphonic, but it’s a timing change not a pitch change, so it doesn’t stand out in the same way.

DSR: Was there an auditory reason you wore gloves when recording the hobbit knives?

DF: Sort of…… it hurt my hands to smack the things together without gloves. So wearing gloves just let me hit them harder.

DSR: how often, if at all, do you dabble with synthesis and making sounds strictly from that?

DF: I hack away at synth material every now and then when the need arises. But I mostly just generate a lot of source elements to use when I do. I don’t know much about what I’m doing tweaking the parameters. Well I know what oscillators & filters & such do, but I never really know what tweaking one will do to a particular part of the sound. It’s a lot of trial and error, just fun making noises, and saving the best bits.

Wow, August just flew! Here is the final post of the Rob Nokes special, with the answers to the questions made by the readers during this month. Hope you enjoyed this month, and get ready for September! :D

Designing Sound Reader: How well do you take care of your microphones? Do you leave them out in the studio overnight or do you put them away the minute the recording session is over? And how often do you get them serviced?

Rob Nokes: I store my microphones in a temperature controlled room that also stores the SoundStorm library, 75F and 38% humidity. I don’t use the Neumanns in dangerous situations but I have placed an MKH-60 adjacent to a car’s muffler. Cheaper microphones are placed in harms way, such as the SANKEN CUB-01′s and AKH C4000B. I have lost some Sennheiser E835′s.

The studio sound proofing controls temperature and humidity so I don’t have a problem leaving the microphones out over night. Microphones get serviced when they have problems, it’s important to have backups available when a microphone starts to sound bad.

DSR: What type of headphones are you using to monitor while you’re recording?

RN: For field recording I have used the Sony MDR-V900HD Studio Monitor Type Headphones.
For studio recording I absolutely love the Sennheiser RS-180 wireless headphones because they are wireless. The sound quality is not “wired” quality but it’s very good considering the price ($300) and the flexibility of working wireless in the studio.

DSR: How well dampened or deadened is the ADR studio you worked in? Was it extremely dead like an anechoic chamber or was it slightly live? Also, how big was it (dimensions)?

RN: The reflections are controlled so there are no flutters or standing waves that cause frequency bumps. My ADR room is designed in such a way that I can control the liveliness of the room by exposing concrete or wood by quickly removing carpeting. The lower half of two side walls has baffles that can be removed to increase reflections. In the corner I have two 4 foot traps stacked 8 feet high to eat up a 300 HZ bump at the back of the room. The most important sound treatment happens on the front and back wall and ceiling. An anechoic chamber is not recommended unless you only need the sounds for pure sound design and even then that can be over done. The room is 17 by 19 by 10.

DSR: While recording ambiences, do you set the mics extremely still or do you like to walk around with them to get a constantly changing environment?

RN: Both. It depends on the situation and the desired effect that is needed. If you are shooting a moving POV remember to move slowly so that the perspective change is always minor (not jarring).

DSR: How do you think the Zoom HN4 compares to the 2? Specifically the preamps?

RN: I only used the H4 so I can only compare to that unit. The H4N was a significant improvement but let’s be clear that the H4N is great for general sounds, if you are recording pure tones or ultra-quiet sounds you’re better off with the Zaxcom Deva 5 or a similar quality recorder.

DSR: Do you also choose different preamps to work with for the right sound like you choose different mics? Or do you always use one type of preamp?

RN: I had two SoundDevices preamps for these purposes but I found the controls to be clumsy (very sensitive and easily altered when field recording) and the additional bulk was unwarranted for the quality difference. It’s really important to get to a good sound and quickly record it before the opportunity has passed. Now I don’t have any additional pre-amps, hold it; I forgot; I do have a EAA PSP-2 and BeachTek DXA-6A. Otherwise I use the onboard pre-amps on the Zaxcom Deva 5, Korg MR-1000, and H4N.

DSR: What sample-rate do you record/edit at? If you record at 96 or 192, what do you use to downconvert it?

RN: Depends on the sound and purpose of the sounds. If a sound can be recorded really clean and is for sound design: 192. If the sound is for editing only then 96.

DSR: Do you ‘master’ your sounds before you put them in your library (and the Sounddogs shop) or leave them as you recorded them.

RN: Always master them. Mastering is harder work than recording, by far! The good thing about mastering is you learn how your microphone sounds and most importantly you learn not to breath on the mic, shuffle your feet, crunch rocks, have keys in your pockets, have your cell phone, etc. By mastering the sounds you curse yourself for all the editing you’ve caused yourself to do.

DSR: Do you prefer mon sounds to work with in surround or stereo?

RN: This is more of a mixing and editing question. If you are moving a specific sound in a surround environment mono is practical. Stereos are good for ambiance and backgrounds.

DSR: How do you “clean” your takes from undesired backgrounds, specially when recording outside?

RN: “Backgrounds” suggests you are talking about a constant noise in the background of a recording. This depends if I am mastering a specific or background, if it is a background you’re kind of hosed, the three things you can do are: cut out the most offensive sections of noise. secondly EQ the offensive noise to minimize its perceptibility and noise reduction (Izotope). If the sound recorded is a specific, then shoot with your back to the undesired background and the good sound at the directly in front of the microphone. Also record multiple takes so that your chances of getting a clean sound is higher.

DSR: Do you always use a preamp between the mic and the recorder, or do you sometimes use the recorder’s preamp?

RN: See answer above.

DSR: How do you make recordings under the rain? I mean, covering the mic with an umbrella or something will produce undesired sounds!

RN: An umbrella will introduce too much noise from the rain hitting the umbrella. Look for an elevated canopy to help shield the microphone or record briefly with a jammer on your zeppelin to help protect from rain.

DSR: Do you use acoustics at all when you are field recording?

RN: Yes absolutely. Acoustics and near reflections can help color and build sound considerably. Clap your hands in the corner of a room and in the middle of the room, the difference is substantial. I like to elongate short sounds by adding near reflections.

DSR: Do you position your subjects for the best possible acoustics? Like if you were recording an elephant, would you go so far as to place him away from the side of a building to get rid of the echo slap-back?

RN: Yes, but it depends on what the need of the sound designer is. With the example you have given, a near reflection (close to the wall) might be less noticeable as a medium reflection that would be more noticeable. The initial sound blast will hide a very close reflection but it cannot hide a medium long reflection because the time difference of the reflection is longer and is not hidden by the decay of the original sound.

DSR: How do you apply acoustics to your recordings?

RN: Positioning the sound source or the microphone. Also physical reflectors (boards, metal sheet) can be positioned for desired effect.

DSR: Do you use compression in your recordings? Or do you apply it afterwards?

RN: No. I very rarely use a compressor.

Sadly, the Bruce Tanis special has come to its end. This month was amazing, with a really great amount of sound effects editing master classes given by Bruce. Here are the answers to the questions made by the readers during this month. Hope you like them!

Designing Sound Reader: As a student/future sound editor, I’ve been anxious about the fact that there is no prescribed method to getting one’s foot in the door in the business. For a major studio like Warner Bros., and with many sound folk competing to enter the field, how does one land an internship or entry level position there?

Bruce Tanis: The major Hollywood studios, including Warner Brothers, are union facilities and while there is an apprentice classification, almost no one uses it anymore. The problem here is that you have to be in the union as an assistant or as an editor to work there. The good news is, however, that there are a lot of non-union companies around town and even some union houses outside of the studios which do use runners and interns so at least you can get your foot in the door that way. It has always been a good bit of “who you know” as much as (or more than) “what you know” that gets you a job so it would be a good idea, if you’re in Los Angeles, to go to a few facilities and introduce yourself, staying in contact with them, so that they get a chance to know you in hopes that when an opportunity does come up, they’ll think of you.

DSR: Is there any kind of non-audio related art, literature, or experience that has influenced the way that you sculpt sounds or which sounds to add so the story is enhanced the best way possible?

BT: Actually, literature is a really good source for inspiration because it can paint such detailed pictures in your mind of a particular time or place. The novels of Pat Conroy, James lee Burke, or John Berendt, for example, have beautifully descriptive passages in them that make you think about what sounds are appropriate to the stories they’re writing about. I think it’s a great idea to listen whenever you go someplace new or to an event of some type. In the sense that you can’t successfully break the rules if you don’t know what they are, knowing what something should sound like helps me go beyond that in creating a sound scape.

DSR: Hi Bruce. First of all thanks for sharing all your amazing knowledge this month. I was wondering if you have Pro Tools templates to start a project? How you organize your tracks, sends and busses for your sound editing and design works?

BT: Hello and thank you for your kind words. I have a couple of templates that I can use depending on whether a project will be getting predubbed or not. If it’s a simple TV project and there’s no predub time, I’ll simply cut in a session that is about 14 mono tracks and 20 stereo tracks, give or take. A couple of the mono’s will be dedicated to subwoof material and perhaps four of the stereo tracks will be dedicated for surround information. I’ll cut in direct outputs and render any processing I do directly with the clip as opposed to using sends and inserts for track-based compression, reverbs, or whatever else.

That’s a technique left over from my old dinosaur beginning in that the cutting rooms very often had different plugins than the stage had and, invariably, the session would get to the stage and they wouldn’t be able to access whatever plugin I had used but not rendered. A couple of those phone calls and you tend to remember to make the session as bulletproof as you can! For features that do get predubbed, the template is a little more developed. There are two types here, one for hard effects and one for backgrounds.

The hard effects can be up to 16 different categories such as vehicles, weapons, metal impacts, etc. and each category will have the same number of tracks for each reel so the mixer has some consistency as to what shows up on the console at any given moment in the film. Obviously, not every reel in the film will need all thirty tracks for fire effects like reel four, for example, but if every reel is laid out identically, the mixer doesn’t have to re-establish his bussing for each new reel. All these tracks are bussed category by category out to a separate 5.1 master and routed back in to an aux track which has 5.1 direct outputs for monitoring in my room. If everything is a 5.1 output, as opposed to specified mono outputs, I can pan a clip anywhere I need to on any track. I don’t need to have dedicated lefts or rights, etc. The background template is similar but often only has six categories in it. Otherwise, they output through the same bus architecture as the hard effects.

Typically, for the hard effects I’ll group related elements together on adjacent tracks with the loudest and/or most dynamic sounds on upper tracks, moving down as needed for longer, quieter, less transient elements. The background session is usually in some version of this pattern: “A” predub – Airs, Winds, Roomtones; “B” predub – Traffic; “C” predub – Wallas; “D” predub – Nature ( Crickets, birds, etc.); “E” predub – Fire or Water; “F” predub – Misc. BG’s.

DSR: Hey Bruce, why you don’t like Pro Tools 8? I saw in your interview that you’re still using PT 7. IS there something special you find in this version?

BT: I’m using Protools version 7.4 because I have to coordinate with the other editors and the Supervisor on my show and they are all on 7.4. I’ve used version 8.oh.something for a couple of projects including “Fringe” and “Inception” and, for me, the main issue I have with it is that the colors have all been muted in order to accommodate playbacks on a dub stage. I’m sure someone, at some point, mentioned to Digidesign that: “We always have to turn the monitors off during playback because they’re too bright and distract our client’s attention.” Thus, the screen is now somewhat more muted than in previous versions. Good for the dub stage maybe, but not so good for me since I need to sit there looking at the thing for ten straight hours a day.

There are a couple of other small things that don’t quite appeal to me either such as the drive unmount feature is now an unlabeled button on the upper right side of the screen. It took a while to find the first time! Also, in the tracks window on the far left, tracks can be active while being hidden in version 8. A friend of mine unknowingly deleted some tracks that way and didn’t find out about it until it was too late. One thing that caused us a bit of trouble on “Fringe” is that, if the volume graphing for a clip is on the edge of the clip, Protools will randomly play the last sample of that clip at unity volume. I started making sure all volume information starts well ahead of each clip and carries on well behind each clip to avoid this. It’s an extra editorial step that takes time and on occasion, causes problems in conforming.

DSR: Hi Bruce. As someone such experienced as you’re, what would you recommend for starting a career in sound effects editing by myself? What kind of exercises would you think are the best for practice this? Also, how may I know when I’m ready to find a job in sound?

BT: Hello. The quickest and easiest thing you could do to get started, I think, would be to check out a couple of books on sound recording and editing for film or television. There are several of them available online at sites like Amazon.com. You might want to buy an inexpensive recorder and microphone so that you can start recording things that interest you. You don’t need a whole Protools system ( or Nuendo, or whatever else) to start with, just experiment with recording things so you get a good understanding of how loudly to record things to avoid distortion or how to minimize unwanted noises such as wind.

Probably the best thing of all is just listen wherever you go. Start making mental notes of how loud things are like cars starting or dog barks, how quickly something goes by or the natural reverb created by tall buildings or parking garages. The better understanding you have of how things actually sound, the easier it will be to re-create that in an edit bay. There are lots of sound effects libraries available online, by the way, in case you might like to purchase a cd just to explore what someone else has recorded. There are always places like local radio or TV stations, live stage theaters, or colleges that might need volunteers and that would be a great way to get started. Good luck and don’t give up!

DSR: Mr Bruce, what an amazing month! full of learning…. I was wondering if you set limitations to your workflow. For example don’t use some plugin or sound, a maximum of tracks to use, etc

BT: You’re very kind. Thank you. The only limitations really are usually how many tracks I can create in a session because television projects or feature temp dubs simply don’t allow for as many tracks as I might like to have. They just aren’t able to get through that much material in the time allowed if it’s cut that heavily and spread out that widely. As a freelance editor, I work in whatever room I get assigned to and I don’t have control over what plugins come with that system so it’s always a bit of a guess what I might have to work with. Basically, though, as long as there is a good reverb and a good pitch change plugin, which almost every system has today, I can get along pretty well. Sadly, that way I don’t get a lot of exposure to some of the more obscure or newer ones but I try to experiment with them when I have the chance.

I still haven’t found quite the right architecture yet in terms of cutting things that have multiple characteristics to them such as vehicles or weapons. My sessions are usually laid out as a set of consecutive mono tracks followed by a set of consecutive stereo tracks with the subwoof tracks at the bottom of the mono’s and the surround tracks at the bottom of the stereo’s, although that doesn’t necessarily work well if you have, for example, a gunshot which has mono, stereo, surround, and subwoof elements when those tracks aren’t located next to each other. Because the clips are all labeled appropriately, the mixer can find them easily enough but it still bothers me that my gunshot, just as a random example, might show up on the mixing console on faders 3, 4, 5 (mono elements), 12 (subwoof), 21/22, 23/34 ( stereo elements) and, 35/36 ( surrounds). It works fine but it’s just not elegant.

DSR: I’m going to finish my studies in sound for media. I know everything about technical aspects of sound, recording, etc. I’ve done some projects on sound design and editing, but I would like to practice more and get better skills to look for a job in sound editorial. What do you think are the most important skills I need to apply for an internship/apprenticeship in somewhere?

BT: Going through a course of study in school is a great way to make yourself valuable in an internship program. It gives you a good general background so that you know what someone is talking about and allows you to get up to speed much more quickly once you’ve been hired. Additionally, I think the best thing you can do for an entry level position like that is demonstrate an eagerness to learn and be ready to help out with anything that they may need. As an intern or apprentice, by definition, you’re not expected to know everything about the job since they’ll train you once you start, but demonstrating a set of good personal skills is critical. A good attitude, positive energy, proper attire for your interview, the same things that would make you employable in any setting are important here too.

A really good thing to do is find out a little information about the company you want to work for. Do they produce commercials or music videos? Do they only produce sound for video games? Showing knowledge of and interest in their work right at the start is a very positive thing to do. On the other hand, during a job interview, if they ask you, “If we were to hire you, what do you see yourself doing here?”, and you can’t answer because you don’t know what they do, you look very unprofessional. Good luck and I hope you do well.

DSR: Bruce, being a sound effects editor, how you deal with levels? I’ve been always confused with levels and dynamic range, mostly the sued on tv, etc. What kind of level and dynamic range is needed to deliver a sound editing work? Also, could you tell me about the delivery aspects of your workflow? ie: formated, names, levels, etc… In other words: how you deliver your finished work?

BT: Dub stages and sound editing rooms are typically set up to monitor at 85 decibels for theatrical features and 83 db for television shows although on near field speakers in an edit bay that can be a little too loud to listen to comfortably for a whole day of editing. I usually edit about ten db down from that to avoid ear fatigue, a little quieter still for particularly loud sequences. I’ll audition everything at unity volume to make sure of what the sound is really doing, cut the sequence at a low level and then, when I’m finished editing the scene, I’ll turn it back up to play at unity again just so I know how the sequence really plays. That way I only hear things at a higher level a couple of times and not again and again as I work through the scene. Everything gets balanced against production dialog and gets assembled in what we refer to as a dynamic range of sounds.

For example, gun shots, jets, and other very loud sounds get cut at a higher loudness level and things like room tones, and cloth movement get edited much more quietly in relation to production dialog. For the loudest sounds, I’ll often peak in the red on the Protools meters but since I’m monitoring at 75 db, I still have a bit of head room once the session gets to the dub stage. If the sequence is particularly loud such as a running gun battle or car chase, I can use a compressor or limiter plugin to boost the impact of a sound without distorting, or, I can cut the same exact sound on two or three tracks as opposed to one. Each individual track will still only reach 85 db, but in playing them all back together they sum to just a bit louder.

For delivery to a dub stage, I try to name every clip, a process known as tagging, although most editors don’t do this very much any more because of time constraints. I believe it’s still an important part of your presentation along with head and tail fades, volume graphing, panning, etc. Since schedules are shorter than ever, and most projects get dubbed straight from the Protools session without printing any cue sheets, most people feel it’s unnecessary to tag the clips. I prefer, however, to name them, because I don”t believe it’s proper etiquette to force a mixer who’s already under pressure on the dub stage, to try to figure out which clip needs to be lowered significantly when all he has to go on visually is the name “CD1022-34.1 mono-dupl-1″. If I name the clip “Big Beefy Car Accel”, he has a much better chance of finding the clip and lowering the level successfully when the client asks him to.

You NEVER want the mixer to have to turn around in that situation and say, “I’m still trying to find it!” Otherwise, I’ll deliver a simple Protools session with all audio kept with it so they won’t have to link to anything on the stage. From prior discussions with my Supervisor, I’ll know what session parameters to deliver such as frame rates, bit rates, with or without a video or audio pulldown and so on. Often, the session will be 24 bit, 48k, broadcast wave files, with a video only pulldown but that can vary with every show and every dub stage.

DSR: Hi Bruce,workflow/philosophy question: In a film context: What thought process do you use to determine whether to cut in a sound from a library vs record something fresh – even if an acceptable sound exists in the library that you are using?

BT: The basic deciding factor is budget. If we can get money into the sound budget to go record new material, that’s really always preferable simply because it’s tailored for that film. Almost anything imaginable can be edited out of most professional libraries today, but it really helps to go out and record specific items to keep each show sounding fresh and interesting. Another factor in deciding new vs. library is whether or not a required sound effect is particularly unique to that film. For something like “Red Line”, an super high end exotic car film I worked on, it was critical to go and record all the primary cars used in the film. Certainly, we had recordings of Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s in the library but these were key parts of the film and we wanted to get recordings that supported the way they were driven on camera. I’m pretty sure NOBODY in town had a recording of a Konnigsegg so we just HAD to go get that one at any rate.

DSR: Hi Bruce, can you tell us some of the “accidents” that happened during some of your field recording sessions and that you used in a show afterwards? Also, what’s the most fascinating sound you ever heard in the field (mechanism, animal, toy…)

BT: Hi Jed. Usually most accidents end up being vehicles or some sort of machinery that pops up unexpectedly in whatever space you’re recording in. Emergency vehicles with sirens going by, helicopters, generators starting up that you didn’t know were there, stuff like that. Once, I was trying to record a long sequence of a garbage truck rolling down the street collecting trash from bins as it came and, after it went by, a nice church bell went off in the distance. The bell’s been in a few different projects over the years. For some reason, two of the more interesting sounds I’ve heard are both military vehicles. Years ago, while living in Reno, Nevada, I went out to the Air Races and wandered out in a field a ways off from the actual airspace the races took place in. What I hadn’t counted on, and probably the reason they tell everyone NOT to go out in surrounding areas, is that for the start of one of the AT-6 races, the planes start from an airborne position and come in about fifty feet above where I was sitting! Eight or ten of these old but still race-worthy World War II fighters went right over me and it was both terrifying and really cool.

The other military moment I mentioned happened a couple of years ago on the Warner Brothers lot In Burbank, California. They were shooting J.J. Abrams’s “Cloverfield” on the back lot near our building and they had three full-on battle-ready National Guard tanks there for the shoot. These things weren’t Hollywood mockups or anything like that. They were extremely serious front-line TANKS. They fired one of them up and our building started to shake. They started the second one up and it got worse. They fired the third one up and the parking lot started to vibrate. Yes. the parking lot was vibrating. The three of them made such a huge rumble we all went out to watch them roll around the backlot and disappear behind the buildings. THAT was fun.

Oh, and one more. I shouldn’t forget there was the thunder from the gates of Hell while waiting at the front entrance to Epcot in Orlando.

DSR: Hi Bruce! Thanks a lot for those really good articles on fx editing. Many sound designers speak very generically about their work and limit themselves to sharing some of the sounds they used so its cool to see some detailed editing workflows and techniques being described.

Anyways, my question was regarding backgrounds. How much do you work perspective and level changes on backgrounds within a scene? Do you try to keep each scene quite constant so it sounds we are in the same location or are you cutting more detailed changes on perspective based on angles and shots?

BT: Thank you very much. I’m glad you like the articles! They were really fun to do. I’m one of the only people I know that believes backgrounds have a very important place in creating moods and believability in a scene. Very often, they’re just tossed in because there just isn’t time in the schedule to seek out interesting backgrounds and edit them properly. Sadly, “Cricket bg #1″ is usually the one that gets played because no one has the time to audition “Cricket bg #2″. I like to find different things and use whatever little odd bits are in them because I think that gives them their best use. For example, I’ll try to find corridor backgrounds that have neat doors in them or traffics that contain good horns and sirens and then I’ll cut them up so the good little bits are placed, as much as possible, in the clear so that they might contribute as much as possible. They still play as backgrounds meaning they play at a fairly low level and run head to tail in a scene but now they have little sync moments as well that I think can be really nice.

I’ll change the level on them if the scene moves interior to exterior or vice versa and I will ride the level on them a bit as the scene plays but I typically don’t cut them to camera angle changes. I find that things just get too ping-pongy if you do that. I do play them for overall perspective though, for example, closer to the barn, the crickets are just a bit louder, while closer to the house, they’re a little quieter. They almost always run the entire length of the scene unless we’re following a character as he or she moves from one environment to another. The typical scenario is having someone walk out of their office, down the hall, and into another office.

For this example, I will definitely have one set of backgrounds for the starting location, move through an intermediate set as they pass other offices, and end up with a third set at the last location. One last device that I find helpful is to edit backgrounds in an additive method. By that I mean I’ll start with a master set of tracks for the location in general, perhaps a waterfall on the edge of a lagoon. As we move through different shots, successively closer and closer to the waterfall, I won’t change them out completely for each cut but instead I’ll keep the base tracks going and add a layer each time the camera shows us new information.

DSR: How often do you automate EQ and when and where?

BT: Thank you so much for the compliment. I don’t usually process anything by track-based plugins so I end up using an EQ plugin directly on each clip and rendering it manually each time as needed. The reason being I don’t typically cut that much material from a specific family of recordings that contain a low hum or a high-frequency whine in them across an entire reel ( in contrast to cutting production dialog that has a generator hum in it or something like that), so it doesn’t make sense for me to have something working on that whole track just to correct a couple of clips.

I suppose if I were cutting a series of car effects ( that had EQ issues), that reoccur frequently across a reel that might be a good way to go. Otherwise, I’ll make a determination clip by clip as to whether or not something needs to be EQ’d. Actually, as often as not, I’m not looking to take high or low frequencies out, but to add low frequencies IN. There’s a plugin called MaxxBase that works well but it’s just as easy sometimes to grab a multi-channel EQ plugin and crank up the low-end frequency gain al little.

DSR: How do you build your scenes – background to foreground or vice versa?

BT: Feature films often get divided up between editors and I usually work on sync hard effects but, on the occasions that I end up cutting everything in a reel, I like to start with the backgrounds first and do a complete pass of those simply so that, while that’s getting done, I can let my mind think about what I might want to use for the various hard effects or design elements required. Backgrounds are typically: audition them, download, cut them. Pretty simple thought process. Hard effects and design material are much more open to interpretation and, whereas a shopping mall bg is a shopping mall bg, an alien squid monster can start out as just about anything in the library!

DSR: What do you like to keep as a stereo file and what do you like to keep as a mono file? Do you have guidelines?

BT: I tend to cut most backgrounds in stereo with mono helpers and most hard effects in mono with stereo helpers. Yikes! It really helps out the dialog mixer to have center mono backgrounds to anchor his dialog with in case there are any inherent technical problems or if he needs to marry an ADR line in with production. And on the other side, I find most hard effects play perfectly well as mono sounds although I will definitely sweeten weapons and car interiors, etc. with stereo tracks to give them more impact. If it’s a key gun or maybe a specific interior like a huge cargo plane in flight, I’ll cut those in 5.1, adding in subwoof and surround elements as well. More mundane things like doors (unless it’s a character door or a story point of some kind), I’ll cut in mono.

Also, hard effects often have panning issues associated with them and it’s a little easier to pan them in mono form than as stereo information unless you have a five-channel panner handy.

DSR: What percentage would you say is original recorded material you did and what percentage of you work is from a library?

BT: These days the vast majority of effects comes from library sources. I was lucky enough to get a lot of newly recorded material from John Fasal, who is a seriously talented field recordist, for Yogi Bear but television programs don’t really allow much of that on a weekly schedule. So many projects have been added to various libraries that I have access to that I really just don’t need to go outside of them all that often as a general rule.

DSR: What sample-rate do you record at, edit at and turn your product over to the mixer at?

BT: It depends on what the requirements of both the dub stage and the picture department are but most often the session will be 24 bit, 48k, and broadcast wave.

DSR: Are you editing mostly on speakers or on headphones?

BT: I much prefer to edit using speakers. That’s probably why I’ve never made the switch to cutting dialog. I find that headphones are simply too fatiguing to listen to cars and gunshots through all day long. In the event I end up auditioning non-mastered field recordings from the library, I have to be really careful of something not blasting me if I’m using headphones whereas with speakers, if something does spike up, at least it not all that sound pressure going straight into my ears. And, of course, for editing hard effects, speakers are a more transparent representation of what the material will sound like on a dub stage.

Designing Sound Reader: Hi Charles, I see you have done loads of weapons recording, I dont have any experience of that but I would love to try it. Do you ever use analogue tape to record gun/explosion sounds?

CM: I have not I must confess- I have used analog tape to process digital source, but not in the field. John Paul Fasal takes a Nagra out on many of his shoots, including ones we diid together for Flags Of Our Fathers and Starship Troopers. The Nagra can have a nice sound to it, but frankly in my opinion what is gained in warmth tends to be at a cost of signal to noise ratio- Since I do almost all of my recording a 96k, the clarity of higher sample rates, at least for me is much more desirable.

DSR: When cutting gun fx (shots,bullet whizz-bys,impacts,etc…) to picture do you end up using a lot of sweetening or do you get most done with raw recordings? How about processing such as Dopler,filtering,etc…

CM: Good question- It ultimately comes down to the creative direction that the team requires- sometimes using more stylisitic processing is right, and sometimes it might be less right- but the ultimate goal is presenting a sound that excites the folks you are working for- whether it is a film or a game.

DSR: Hi Charles. What’s your trick to staying creative & keeping your ideas fresh – especially during schedules that never seem to have enough time? Cheers

CM: Wow- a challenging question- I guess the best thing to do is to never be satisfied with what you have already done- As to the schedules, That is a rock which simple is, we always have to do the best we can, and ultimately you should be able to count your library as a helper to turn around sounds that work, instead of fighting by having to deal with unmastered or inefficiently organized sounds. Your mastering and library organization skills are very, very, very important to your success as an editor or sound designer.

DSR: Hi Charles, What stereo techniques do you use to cover a gunshot? I guess it must be different for the setup next to the gun than the one covering the bullet trayectory or the impact. Do you use 5.1 recording? Do you use dynamic microphones and when? Thanks and best regards,

CM: When I am in the field, I am typically working with mono and stereo miking strategies. Unless a project has a very specific requirement for something like a true 5.0 sort of recording, I find having unique stereo and mono sounds to be more flexible for making nice gun sounds. As to miking impacts and bys, I do try to get those when recording the principal weapons, but it often requires good preplanning and knowledge of the recording venue to make it pay-off. As to Dynamic mics- I always have some attached to the recorders- most often, Shure SM57′s, but I am also very partial to the Sennheiser MD441.

DSR: A question for Charles: could you explain me how is the mastering you give to the sound effects you record? what are your tools for that? Cheers.

CM: I master everything in ProTools- basically the work flow consists of-

1 – Syncing all channels of the recording

2 – Removing unwanted silences and in between sounds

3 – Doing remedial gain adjustment to any sounds which might be under modulated

4 – Striking new masters in interleaved (Multi-Channel, Stereo or Mono track format)

The masters are all at the original sample rate, unless lower res versions have been up-converted. I prefer to not use any EQ or dynamics on the “Master” recordings, and will reserve that for the stage the masters might be use in sound design. The main reason I prefer using interleaved file formats is that it dramatically reduce the number of files being mastered, and it is impossible to add a multi- channel file into a ProTools session without it being copied and converted.

DSR: Hi Charles. What a terrific special! I’ve enjoyed it so much. My question is abut your work at home as freelancer… Do you take the reels of the shows/films and design the sounds in your home? when do you go to a professional studio and when you work just on your home studio?

CM: Thanks! Chuck Russom said a month of specials was a beast to take on, and he was certainly right! (He can be like that) But it was great fun and It is always nice to see your thoughts on paper for the purpose of re-evaluation. As far as working at home- it has its benefits, but if any facilities are interested in inviting me to work at their place I am totally interested! As to taking things home, It really depends on the criteria of the work arrangement, sometimes it is possible, others times it is not. As far as the differences in working at home vs outside the home, the biggest downside is that I dont have the 100 plus plugins handy that I have at home, and also I dont have my sound library. Thats not to imply it is any better than others, but I know very, very intimately what sounds are in mine- so in that regard, it can be a downside, but if the re is time, it is always great to use sounds you arent used to for design work. Actually, reading that again- For editorial work, in a general sense, there is no difference- but I would never try to mix in my space, because it is just to far from a reasonable theatrical venue.

DSR: Hey Charles, thanks for this amazing special. I enjoyed all of your articles a lot!!! i have one question regarding limiters when recording… Do you use them in every session you have? when is recommendable the use of limiters?

CM: For loud stuff limiters are essential in my opinion- In fact, on my Mixpre, I cannot easily disable them. I think they can be used as a matter of course with most things, since your input trims and levels can allow the m to never be called on.

DSR: A question to Charles Maynes: I study sound design by myself and I wondered what would be your advice for practicing and learning the craft by myself? Any kind of homework or technique that would be cool to work on for practice and learn sound design? Anything you can recommend me would be really appreciated. Kind regards.

CM: Probably the toughest question so far…. Really the best way to get into it is to carefully study the films you like and try to figure out how the sounds were made- the film that totally got me into wanting do sound design for film was Terminator II- I just love the work Gary Rydstrom did on that film- it just absolutely resonated with me. Beyond that, (and outside the obvious choice of being able to go to the USC School of Cinema) I would say that you have to make the move to get a modest editing setup and try you hand at putting sound to image- I remember reading that when Ben Burtt was preparing to to do the sound work on Stars Wars Episode I, in order to learn ProTools he put sound to old WW2 battlefield documentary films. That is really a great way to learn about layering sounds and experimenting- Back when I started doing sound on ProTools we had 16 tracks (and I started with 4 Tracks) so the power of the systems today is more powerful in geometrical scale.

DSR: I’m interested in see how is the charles’s home studio. what tools he use and how is the acoustic treatment of the room. If he can share some pics would be great!! Thanks for the special, sir!

CM: The studio meets my needs, which are pretty modest- As you can see I have a ProTools HD system which is an HD2Accel- it is really quite capable for the work I do- the only outboard processing I am using is the somewhat rare use of the Behringer SNR2000 Analog noize reduction unit- It is something Sam Lehmer, a Rerecording Mixer I have had the delight of working with numerous times turned me on to. The only other things that are sort of on my radar are getting (another) DBX 120 sub harmonic synthesizer, and perhaps a Lexicon 480 Reverb. I also have the Alesis AirFX too. As to treatments- I do have some auralex foam which does tame some of the reflections in the monitor sweetspot, but there is not much more that is really needed since it has few weird reflections.

DSR: Mr Charles: I’m starting with my career on sound effects recording. What would you recommend me for my first gear acquisition? (recorder, mic, etc) Many thanks!! And keep the great work, dude!

CM: Thanks! If you are doing recording, you will need a recorder- you can spend a lot or a little- to start out- I would say something like the Zoom or Sony Handhelds might be a good idea, and as you develop your skills you can either by mics and additional recorders or ewnt them as you need them.

DSR: Miguel, could you send this question to Charles? How you catalogue your sound effact library? What are the conventions you typically use? And also… what kind of storage do you use for your sound effects library? What brand of hard drive or RAID systems would you recommend for worked with sound effects?

DSR: Hey Charles, I read on the interview that you work with Soundminer. Do you use the metadata fields? How is the structure of your sfx library? THX!

CM: My Library, something that seems to evolve on a daily basis, And I do use Soundminer to access that resource, as for cataloging, I set up 4gb packages that function as modern sound roles. these are backed up to Drives and DVD’s before they are even added to the Library. For me, this is the only practical way to manage adding files really- To do so in a catagorized heirarchy would make backups and adding material a nightmare- How I will usually manage the naming of these files is something like:

CBM 456-01 AMBIENCE • INSECTS • BRANCH DAVIDIAN COMPLEX • WACO TEXAS

Since OSX allows more that 31 characters, I am now simply naming the files in that sort of way- I did use the Metadata functions in Soundminer, but ran into instances when the metadata would get lost and corrupted, and simply grew tired of reloading sounds to fix it- I have never seen a filename get corrupted in the same manner. I can also add as much or as little information as I like, and often I will use a program like Name Mangler to add data to the names as they are prepared for the library- things such as catagories or other attributes which can be easily inserted into the filename text. The problem with metadata in general is that there is simply no really standard for it, and how it is held in the file. Soundminer encrypts theirs so it may not be compatible with standard Broadcast Wave file readers.

As to drives, I have 2 1.5TB raid drives I work from with the drives functioning as virtual 500gb volumes 0 (I have actual 500gb drives which mirror this data and are synced about once a week, or more often)-

I never, ever ever use these drives in editorial or design as anything but read only volumes.

DSR: Hey Charles, I’m getting ready for final mix of an indie feature I’m working on and was hoping you could touch on your process to prepare for re-recording. How much do you mix down your tracks? Balancing clarity for the mixer while maintaining separation of individual elements. Also, how do you deal with real-time plugins? Re-record all of your verbs/delays/EQ’s before hand? Thanks,

CM: Since I am not a formal re-recording mixer, though I have done both smaller scale finals and predubbed for some of the films I have worked on, I must confess my experience is generally more on the FX side of the console and Foley- If I am working in that capacity it will usually be due to time or budget constraints- and I will ALWAYS ask how the mixing team will want the material to be presented, because if they need to unravel the mix I provide, I want that to be as easy as possible for them- For effects, you will typically have BG’s, Multiple hard fx, foley props and feet and perhaps design predubs to work with- As far as HOW these are added to the stew, that is truly dictated by both the Director and Editor and the Visual images themselves- most of your priorities will be quite intuitive. As a general rule of thumb you can count on the rank order as- #1 Dialog, #2 Music and number #97 Effects. There are of course notable exceptions to that rank order, but in most cases it does indeed rule.

As to plugins- again it is very dependent on the workflow- in the films I have predubbed, typically I will record the channel outputs into multiple stems with EQ, Dynamics and Reverb being flattened into the new audio- This traditionally is the way we worked in film, with thte virtual dub being a relatively new thing. Keeping everything in a virtual sort of flux IS great for changes, but sometimes can have its own sets of problems if the workstation becomes recalcitrant in playing all the automation- in most cases, there will be so many track elements running, that there is no way even know if something didnt play unless it is blatantly missing or at an irrational level. I am still un-nerved by the potential of this. One thing I did do on both the Great Raid and The Alamo, since I did do predubbing on them was to have my final predub session incorporate the stem tracks (Instead of off-line bouncing) so as I refined the mix, Iwas able to always update the stem so it could be copied off at any point it was needed. This I thought was great- and If I am doing a final, I will simply import those stem tracks into my final session- and mix- If I need to update something I can quickly jump to the predub, do the the update and it will be immediately available in the final session.

DSR: Charles, how is your process for sound effects mastering? Do you normalize everything? What is your favorite tool for noise reduction?

CM: This always changes for me- in general, I will try to record with final levels in mind but in some cases you might choose to record at an elevated level knowing that the master will have its gain reduced- Having come from a pre-digital recording background, I always try to get as much and as clean of a signal to the media as is possible- I cannot see the value in wasting headroom in most cases and a clean sound can always be made quieter. As far as peaks for masters, I will usually allow a signal to peak a -.5dbFS. For Background Masters, I will try to make sure they are running at least a about -20db. Any lower or higher will usually require correctove action to get them into a reasonable level with a fresh mix. I will use Noise Reduction sometimes, or EQ (which is usually corrective) The Noise Reduction I tend to use is either or a combination of SONIC NoNoise, Sonnox Restore or Izotope RX- I will sometimes of course use the SNR2000 hardware as well.

One tool I adore for noise reduction is the McDSP ML4000 which can be used as a multi-band expander like Waves’ C4. I do find those actually more useful than Broadband Noise Reduction in most cases.

DSR: Are you pretty much an ITB guy now or do you still break out the outboard gear these days?

CM: I do much of my design in the box, but I still do use outboard whan I need to- some stuff, though available in a digital form- like Analog tape modelling or subharmonic synthesis I still think sounds better in hardware.

DSR: Do you heavily master your weapons recordings to give them more punch? i.e. L2, c4, inflator, or is that something you leave to the design suite or mixing stage?

CM: All the weapons I gave as examples were raw recordings- with no processing- If I do choose to add processing I will make the files a part of the projects design sounds library- As to what the stage requires, there are so many variables in that, that I try to give them a good sound which is rounded in frequency content and not distorted (unless done so for creative effect).

DSR: And lastly, in the same way various sound people have said that they get taken out of a movie by a clichéd door or scream, do you find yourself wincing at the cutting of incorrect guns in movies?

CM: Oh yes- the one that will take me out of a movie or game EVERY TIME is an M60 Machine gun. It is very distinctive,- I guess it just says “Machine Gun” but unless it is either an M60 or some sort of fantasy gun – like in Starship Troopers- I find it very distracting. But I could rigght a volume on gun things that drive me crazy!

Below are the answers to all the questions that readers made to our fantastic May’s guest Jim Stout.

Designing Sound Reader: Hey Jim, Just wanted to send a note about how much I’ve enjoyed the interviews and topics presented the last few weeks. Great material and information for a budding sound effects editor. Thanks dude,

Jim Stout: Thanks, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it. It’s been a lot of fun to do.

DSR: Hey Jim, thanks for the videos on explainging how to create atmosphere and organic sounds. I’m amazed by the openlabs neko ex5! It’s awesome and it’s a tool that you can tell it makes your life easier. How easy is to learn to use it? You also mention that you’ll put Kyma into neko. That would create the total sound design tool. When do you think that’ll happen?

JS: The EX 5 is really easy to learn, mainly because of the OpenLabs program that comes on the EX 5 called RIFF. It allows you to layer, stack and configure VST effects in any way you want- and then you can just play them. You can play it on the keys or, if one of the plug-ins or VST instruments has its own clock-based modulation, you can use RIFF to synchronize all of it.

And, I’m going to put a Kyma Pacarana on my Neko ASAP.

DSR: Hi Jim. I was wondering about how are the caustic treatment you have on your studio… could you share a picture of that? Also… what would you recommend me for basic acoustic treatment? (mostly for sound effects designing).

JS: I’m actually in the midst of rearranging my studio (I like to keep things changing), so I don’t really have a pic at present. But, if you’ve got the time, just build your own out of some 4”X2” s, some heavy fabric, and polyester batting. If you search the internet you’ll find a lot of really good articles on how to build these.

DSR: Hey Jim, thanks for sharing all this amazing tutors. Just want to know how much field recording do you do? Also, how do you get hired by sound effects companies such as hollywood edge? How could I get a work making sound effects for them?

JS: I do field recording whenever possible. There’s never a time when I don’t have some sort of recorder on me.

I started doing stuff with Hollywood Edge after they contacted me about something I sent them. If you’re looking to get some work, the best advice I could give is just take a chance and shop what you’ve got around. You never know when you’ll get a call back.

DSR: Jim. I’m curious to know more about your field recording process. What kind of micas do you use? What specific use do yo give to each of those mics?

JS: My “go-to” mic’s are all Rode. I feel like for the price, they’re hard to beat.

I don’t really go into a field recording situation with specific uses for the mics in mind. I kind of just play it by ear. When I’m out in the field things can change very quickly, I have to be able to go with the flow. Sometimes the very sounds I’m trying to focus on end up taking a back seat to something surprising and new.

DSR: Hi. I read on the Jim’s interview that he will be launching his own sfx label. When will it be released? Could we get more info about that?

JS: Yes, a download service is in the works. It will debut on this site in June. Stay tuned for more information.

DSR: I imagine living in Austin you end up collaborating a lot via “virtual” meetings. Can you discuss the tools you use in order to work with people located outside of your local area?

JS: It really depends on who and what I’m dealing with. Like with Josh Kay and Richard Devine it’s mostly iChat and ftp file transfers, Hollywood Edge is all digidelivery for deliverables and email. Other than that it’s just skype, and conference calls the rest of the time. :-)

DSR: Where are the greatest future opportunities in the field of sound design? What advice would you give to someone who wants to develop their sound design skills to a professional level? Thanks!

JS: I would have to say the gaming industry or sounds for the mobile device industry (things like applications for iPhones, iPads, Droids, etc.). And, just keep on doing what you’re doing- research, don’t be afraid to experiment and take chances, and learn from anyone you can. Find a work flow or process that works for you and develop that.

DSR: Are you concerned about the idea that working in sound design solely depends on a human sense, namely sense of hearing, which is in constant decay and modification? do you think the fact that your sensitivity to certain frequencies becomes lower as you age could significantly affect your performance as a sound designer? (considering also growing hearing loss due to natural factors as well as the intensive exposure to sound which is sometimes involved in the daily routine of a musician/composer/sounddesigner).

JS: No, I can’t say that I’m all that concerned. I mean, I don’t have much choice- like you say, hearing is in constant decay- so I try not to abuse my ears monitoring too loudly or anything like that. And, you can always use an RTA to check frequency levels.

DSR: Jim, Could you suggest a decent entry level mic for sound design/field recordings? If not a specific mic then could you tell me what I should look for in a good mic?

JS: The Rode NT4 stereo mic is good. But, I’d also recommend getting a good portable recorder that has decent built in mics, like the Zoom H4n or the Sony PCM-D50. If you can, listen to some of them. If you like the way it sounds, try it. The most expensive is not always the best.

DSR: Hey Jim. I am currently doing a Masters Degree in Sonic Arts. I love Sound Design and have recently created the audio for two clips from “Layer Cake”, and “Pixars Lifted”. These clips had good visual material to work with but I was wondering if you could recommend any clips that would be good to work on for a portfolio? I always find good clips but find that they often have a lot of vocal sound in them and I prefer not to work with clips of that nature as my overdubs look rather bad. Can you recommend any good films, short films, or clips that might allow me to gain the attention of potential employers? Ideally I would love some film makers to post their film with the dialogue audio that I could sync rather than having to remove speech entirely – but that’s never going to happen :(

JS: The first thing that comes to mind are some scenes from Aliens (1986). There are some great selections that are just built on the intensity of the moment, free of dialogue.

DSR: What`s your favourite Vst Fx Plugins for Sounddesign ?

JS: It depends on what I’m going to do, but my favorites are Alchemy, Reaktor, Kontakt; for FX, anything by Universal Audio.

DSR: Hi Jim! im from Colombia, and let me tell you that it’s an incredible oportunity for me to learn daily so many things just by looking at your videos or reading your articles. I just love sound Design, but it has been a difficult experience to find information (i mean good info) about the subject. Currently im studing in Argentina, a carrer called Audiovision based on the book Michel Chion wrote, and im really exited with what i have learned til now. My question for you is:
Can you recommend any book or DVD or any source of information related with Sound Design, specially about the post-production technical process? because i really had read a lot about the importance of a good sound design in relation to the “message” you want to communicate, but not about the “how”. Currently im using Logic Pro 9, is it a good DAW to work with SDesign? Thnks a lot, i really appreciate your anwer!

JS: Unfortunately, I can’t think of any book or DVD about the post-production process. Truly, some of the best sources for info are going to be blogs, like on this site and other sound design dedicated websites. Erik Aadahl’s feature a couple months ago gave some good insight into the post-production workflow.

Yes, Logic Pro 9 is a great program. But, ultimately most big projects will reside in ProTools.

• Leave a comment on this post
• Use the contact form
• Write to designingsound [at] gmail [dot] com

The deadline for questions is May 31th and the answers will be published on the final post of the special. Jim will choose and answer any questions that he want. Note that all questions will be considered, but not all will have to be answered.