Live Chat with Ann Kroeber: Recording Now Available

Did you miss the live chat with Ann Kroeber today?

Rejoice! There is a recording available.

A huge round of thanks goes out to Ann for taking the time to chat with us, and thanks to everyone who participated in the chat. Note: If the webinar does not seem to be playing back correctly when you click on the link, try refreshing the page.

Update: Ann also sent along a few comments, post webinar, that she’d like me to share with you.

On dual shotgun microphones for recording ambiences:

“After thinking it over some more, and hunting down some examples to listen to, using two Sennheiser shotgun mics for a stereo pair is something I personally would probably NOT recommend. From what I was able to listen to, the Sennheiser’s still have that thin slightly strident sound that you get in many of their mics, and the crossed pair can sound like you’re recording in something of a tunnel. I’ve always felt that mic placement and what you record is more important than what gear you use. A really great cheaper mic that wasn’t discussed by the group is the Octava cardiod mic. The Octava doesn’t always have great qualilty control and not all are the same but if you listen to them before purchasing them you can find ones that sound quite good for the cost. (nope scratch that I just looked Guitar Center doesn’t carry them anymore…they were brilliant when you could get a good Russian one but..they outsourced to China and cut quality.”

On technique vs. gear:

“Several years ago I was on a nature recording panel at the AES. At the time I was supplying sounds to Ben Burtt for his upcoming Star Wars trilogy. I played a recording for him of a chair rolling around that sounded like a wounded animal and got him interested in my recordings. Afterwards a guy in the audience contacted me and said he wanted to intern with me. I put him off because I assumed he just wanted to find a way to get to work on Star Wars with Ben. He persisted for quite awhile and I finally agreed to meet him.

His name is Jon Meyer. Jon brought in a recording he wanted me to hear of his. Even I was shocked when he pulled out a Dictaphone recorder that he had used to make this recording. (I don’t even know if you know what a Dictaphone is?? it was a little recorder than men used to record letters they wanted their secretaries to type. The quality of the recordings was really pretty poor, it didn’t matter just as long as the secretary could understand what he was saying.  He had pushed the mic in when he recorded and got awesome squealing sounds that were simply ingenious. I instantly hired Jon. I realized he was the real deal. We worked together on the Hollywood Edge CD “Common Sounds Heard in Uncommon Ways.” We had a blast discovering music inside crazy simple objects around the home and office.”