the music of sound

The trailer for the film we are currently mixing has just been released on the internet, download quicktime (31MB) here

I did a lot of research on land speed racers when working on The World’s Fastest Indian, but nothing quite this fast – check out the sonic boom from this ‘car’ doing 1126km/h!

Of course planes can pass the sound barrier as well, check this one out:

Nice bit of sonic physics, if you feel like a read

FWIW the speed of sound is 331m/s, which is why if you sit at the very back of a large picture theatre the sound will be a frame or two late
At 24fps, 1 frame = 13.8 metres of distance

Ok we’ve finished premixing all the FX – between the three of us cutting FX we premixed our elements down to 5.1 stems (from A -> L) which took us 6 days.

Next was the foley premix, which will take us 3 days work and then… set up for the final mix! Its always quite a concentrated mission, patching up the Euphonix Series 5 desk as it can handle over 250 tracks, and they tend to get filled up! The orchestral score is arriving on Monday and has been recorded and premixed in Los Angeles…
Its only then that we get to see what the final soundtrack is going to sound like. we will spend one day per reel final mixing, and we usually start the day by playing down the reel with all the faders up, to get a feel for it… It then becomes a moment by moment, scene by scene process of balancing all of the elements into a cohesive dramatic soundtrack. In a funny way the difference between that first run through in the morning and where we are by the end of the day is like slowly bringing an image into focus. The content is essentially the same but how you perceive it all is radically different. And good mixers make it seem easy, which it sure isn’t!

All I can say on the topic of foley rooms is NEVER trust a tidy one!
The best foley rooms are FULL of props and surfaces to recreate footsteps & performed sound effects, and a good foley artist knows the room, the props & can instinctively reach for a prop to create the ‘right’ sound for any moment… Which is why I love photographing the foley room at the end of each film – every film has some unique requirements so particular props are sourced & become a part of the available collection from then on. Below are a couple of snapshots of the Park Road Post foley room after finishing work on Walden feature film Bridge To Terabithia. The film involved kids climbing trees, hence the large chunks of pine tree you can see in the first photo.

For a great description on foley, have a look here

My studio is in Wellington, New Zealand – in a quiet little suburb called Miramar, heres a QTVR of my main studio and below is a webcam view looking across the harbour towards the city and Miramar peninsula:

And a Google Earth location marker for my studio
just for the record 41°18′45.59″S, 174°48′49.29″E

Also in the neighbourhood is Peter Jackson’s awesome film post facility
Park Road Post

Plus WETA Physical, WETA Digital and two huge soundstages, one of which has a massive exterior blue screen created using shipping containers
stacked up like lego blocks! Wellywood indeed…

Obsessions are funny things… obviously one of mine is sound, which I appreciate is a fairly broad obsession, so to be more specific about it I love to try & capture the wind – not in a balloon or anything – but the many textures of sound created through the wind hitting things.
While there are plenty of obvious examples eg wind in wires, wind drafts, wind turbines, etc, the further into it you go the more specific it becomes…. so needless to say I have been searching for the perfect situation to capture the sound of the wind through a cabbage tree.

Last weekend I went for one of my favourite bush walks close to Wellington, up in the hills above Eastbourne, starting by where the buses sleep at night…

Of course I took my record kit (Fostex FR2 HD recorder & Sanken CS5 mic) but every time I stopped to try & record nice birds etc either a plane or the wind would pick up…
After half a dozen aborted efforts I was heading back down the track to Kowhai Street & realised the wind was making some crazy gusts up the valley & there before me was the perfect little cabbage tree…

So I put the mic up the side of the cabbage tree, sheltered from the main gusts but capturing the the leaves thrashing around.. so I recorded until my arm got too sore to hold the mic any more, but heres an excerpt:

We have just started mixing this film at Park Road Post – Peter Jackson’s fantastic film post production facility. So I thought I might document the process a little….

For the first week or so we are mixing in two rooms – the dialogue & ADR premix is happening next door in Theatre 3 while we start the atmos/ambience premix in one of the bigger theatres, Theatre 2.
We will spend two or thre days on atmos and are printing to a number of 5.0 and LCR stems, so as to maintain some flexibility in the final mix. After thats done we’ll move onto the sound effects premix followed by the foley premix….
All up we’ll be three weeks premixing everything before the score is ready & we can start final mixing – I can’t wait! Its always a joy to have everything fully premixed & finally get to hear it in context….

Heres a screen shot of the ProTools session for Reel 1 Atmos:

After lunch I got distracted & started taking photos through a glass:

no photoshop filters involved! cool huh?

When I was a boy I grew up in rural Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand & as I became aware of music I began to crave more than what was dished up on mainstream radio… FWIW I think the first cassette my brother brought home that really opened my ears was Talking Heads – Remain in Light, followed by Eno & Byrne – My Life In the Bush of Ghosts.. both albums I stil love to this day!
But radio back then was a dismal affair – once I moved to the city, student radio became my saviour & oddly it still is as far as radio goes. But at least now no one is locked into radio for purely geographic reasons, thanks to broadband & streaming audio.
So no matter where you live, heres my favourite radio shows,
check them out (all times are NZ local time ie GMT+12 hours)

BFM STINKY GROOVES
Tuesday 9pm – 12pm

Radio Active DEEP
Tuesday 11pm – 1 am

Radio Active THE SESSION
Thursday 9pm – 11pm

BFM THE AUDIBLE WORLD
Sunday 9pm – 11pm

BBC Giles Peterson WORLDWIDE
Thursday 2am – 4am
Radio Active used to replay this locally alas no longer
but the BBC make their shows available to stream for
a week after the initial broadcast…. God bless ‘em!

tune in etc etc…

Thrashing Marlin have their new album out!

Members of the band are also known as Plan 9 when scoring films,
I’ve had the great pleasure to collaborate with them on a few films,
in particular Gaylene Prestons Perfect Strangers
Earlier this year they gave me the chance to have a play around with
some tracks off this album & OMG I was like a kid in a candy store!
The net result was I ended up re-arranging & making new elements
for the song ‘Tilt of the Earth’ including doing some processing of
Janets incredibly beautiful vocal, playing some Rhodes in the chorus
and generally adding some space into the arrangement to let it breath…
Heres a tiny excerpt:

You can check out the whole album at Smoke CDs
& also check out their site or their myspace site

Yay! Congrats & much respect Thrashing Marlin

(& if you ever are looking for someone to score your film
I highly reccomend you have a chat to Plan 9)

THIS is genius!

“Any experienced studio engineer or producer knows that the presence of visitors in the studio can dramatically alter the performance of singers and musicians. Sometimes the effect can be beneficial, other times it can be disastrous.

Using advanced propriety computer modelling, the Virtual Studio Visitor plugin convincingly emulates the effect of various studio visitors on a performance, without the need of the visitor to actually be present.
Want to hear what the lead singer would sound like if his angry girlfriend was watching from the control room? It’s as simple as applying the Viurtual Studio Visitor ‘Resentful Girlfriend/Wife’ preset to his unaffected vocal track.

The sound can be further customized by adjusting controls for how much the singer or musician hates, respects or fears the Virtual Visitor, as well as controls for setting the level of sexual involvement with the person. Two additional controls specify whether or not the visitor is an ex-band member and whether the visitor is owed money by the musican or singer. The overall level of the effect is determined by the Strength knob, allowing fine-tuning’

Hah! Brilliant!
wonder if they make a version for ADR sessions?