Hi all,
A close friend and mentor, Chris McKeith, now runs the Audio department at one of Australia’s leading film schools, AFTRS. He asked me if I could pass on they are running a short course on location recording and enrolments have just opened up.
So, getting on with the visual diary of the build of the new room.
The front of the room was looking good and we had the desk in place – giving us a feel for how much space we had. As budgets shrink and premixing is becoming more prevelant, I felt strongly that I needed to make the room dual operator friendly, hence the big desk as discussed in the first build diary post. Due to it’s size (3 x 1.2m) I really didnt want to committ to the back wall until it was in the room and I could get a feel for it – and where the clients were going to sit!
So, next came the back of the room. It was a totally irregular shape, so I felt a bit of symmetry was in order. By cutting off the back corner of the room, I could get a more “understandable” or “consistent” acoustic behind me, and the pay off being a small space to use as a machine room; Luxury!
The other decision had to be where to draw the line of this rear wall. There is a door on one side preventing me from making a true “coffin shaped” trapezium based room, so I erred as close to it as I could get. The wall finishes in line with the centre position of the room. This created some modes to deal with later on, but visually it orients you in the room and I felt it was a necessary trade off.
First came the new frame for the wall, slightly more complex due to a door – Ive never hung a door before, so that intimidated the crap out of me to begin with.
Frame went up easily…
Door got hung…bit of a gap around it, but I figured that would “come out in the mix”…(sighs)
The wall then get some 13mm gyprock on the facing side. I then stuff it with batts and gyprocked the inner wall as well.
Then came the paint!
Once the grey paint was done on the side walls, I took down the projection screen (which arrived in the meantime and was mounted, simply to get it out of the way) and put up some small absorption behind my speakers to minimise some comb filtering off the wall behind them
Once that was done and the screen remounted, I was absolutely dying to put up some of the acoustic treatment that had arrived some time earlier. RPG acoustics make some great diffusors, the ones I was advised towards were the full 7inch high skylines. The come unpainted/flocked in natural white, and that was our ceiling colour, so I went straight to them, found a mirror and a willing helper (thanks James and Tim) and found those points of first reflection on the ceiling and put up the skylines. With those in place, the screen up and the paint on, the room was starting to feel like a place to work…
More acoustics analysis came next and some home bass traps needed to be made up… More on that next time. Thanks for reading!
I just had to share a rant about this…
So Steven Spielberg gets some questions over at Soundworks, but I love how he rounds out the interview, when asked his thoughts on the MPSE organisation and the sound craftpeople he responds:
” (they)…are a great bunch of guys and girls and I’m very relaxed around them because, making a movie is really tense, you’ve got a schedule and there’s responsibility and you’ve got to get it all shot, but post production for me, that’s like a vacation, because y’know we don’t have the same pressure… So I think there’s more of a relaxed repore between the director and the sound editors and the music editors because we’re kindof …you never coast but we are on the downhill of a long ordeal and I think we all feel that together and we get to see the result together…”
I’m sorry? WTF? I’m pretty sure that there’s a bunch of sound editors and mixers reading this wondering when the last time was they felt like they were on “the downhill” and almost cruising towards the finishing line in a relaxed frame of mind!
Last I heard most folks are dealing with picture edit taking longer than expected, less time to do a good job, oh and then there’s that revision 4 of the final locked picture that you need to reconform to…
Picture recuts, shrinking bundgets (or sound budgets becoming VFX budgets), equipment maintenance when you’re being paid less each year than the year prior, and people like Spielberg wanting “holographic sound” – who’s going to pay for the sound stages to upgrade their gear to make that holophonic soundtrack Steven??
For those of you who are local readers, Ive kicked off a new PT User group under the auspices of my role with UTS:ProSchool.
So many folks have embraced Facebook, that dreaded viral entity, that I have myself turned to it to organise events.
So the homepage for the SPTUG is link here, you’ll need to be logged into FB to get to it.
If you are in Sydney, please become a fan so you will be made aware when events are posted etc
First meeting penciled in for Tues 16th March, 630pm, somewhere near UTS most likely. Hopefully my Sydney readers can make it!
So this topic may be a bit long due to photographic evidence, but if you’re interested read on!
The room at Trackdown that I put my name on was a fairly large sized room, the problem though was its irregularity – there was only one right angle in the place and everything else was rather dali-esque. The solution to this was to firstly build a false wall at the front of the room to turn it into an even sided trapezium within the mix area – that was, after deciding where the front of the room would actually be!
So first I had to put up that false wall (red bit in the drawing above), by building a frame and to make it totally effective, fill the void behind it with as much insulation as possible…
Then came speaker stands, and being on a budget, but needing them fairly high to put the speaker throw into the middle of the screen and above my console monitors, I went for PVC tubing, sand and threaded rod construction. Each tube took a bag of sand (about 20kgs) so each stand is about 60kgs (120lbs) and is coupled with the floor and speaker using dome bolts on the threaded rod, which is pulling the top and bottom plates together.
Finished Stands with my DSMs on it – lined up the acoustic centre of the speakers
Then the acoustically transparent projection screen – the flagship from Oz theatre screens with their top of the line fabric. This was mounted on another floor to ceiling frame…
The frame from floor to ceiling
The 3.5m wide 16:9 screen in place
You can also see my beautiful custom made desk in that shot. Scott from Zellers Furniture in Sydney made this gorgeous piece, with two brass style plates on either side of the main D-Command. These plates are removable and a precise width, so a second 24 fader configured D-Command can be placed into the desk for dual operator mixes, if ever the need arises!
The desk prior to “brassing” and french polishing
The Desk in place with the DCommand dropped in
Next came a second false wall for a machine room at the back. I held off on putting that wall in place until after the desk was in, to get a better feel for the dimensions of the room. The desk is 3m wide!
More to come soon! Hopefully this is an interesting pictorial diary of the construction… 
So it’s been a week since I left Avid Digidesign and the work has been non-stop!
Finally the room has a lovely coat of paint on it, my XLR connectors arrived today and tomorrow I’ll be making up cables and setting up the machine room in its final configuration (at least for launch!). The RPG acoustic panels arrived today too, some gorgeous red hemifusors
They are all in my machine room until I finish cabling…(see picture above!)
I was reading Screenhub the other day and noted an interesting storyby Nathan Wellington about the future of Aus post production. The article went on to comment on “wellywood” and how SAFilm are building their new facility as well and yet for all this infrastructure what type of movies do we make and how well do we compete on an international level? At Encore, another article was talking about the state of our studios in Aus.
Particularly interesting was Wellingtons comment on the world of HD and the technology evolution over the last few years; “I see the Australian Post industry struggle to keep pace with these developments. Australia has the talent without the exposure to this ‘bleeding edge’ technology find’s it difficult to gain the appropriate experience global productions demand.”
I must admit, reading this I felt pretty good, knowing that Trackdown, myself and Cutting Edge upstairs are all very much on top of the international tech trends into HD production and using the latest gear to get the job done quickly, efficiently and to a high quality. The video satellite system I’m putting in to collaborate/communicate with video editors is one of only about 4 in Aus, whereas it’s well adopted in other major film lots like Sony, Warners, Paramount and even China Film (where they have a vid sat on every PT HD system to speed up their workflow!). Well I guess I’ll open the doors next week to show folks through and we’ll see what they think of this bleeding edge technology and if it’s a case of “producers want it but facilities havent upgraded” OR do producers NOT want it, dont “get it” and aren’t prepared to pay extra for it? Which was the case with surround sound for TV in Aus for the longest time – it needed studio upgrades, the studios charged a premium for surround and producers for the most part, chose to ignore it and kept getting stereo product crafted to keep costs down.
I guess I’ll find out next week…
So, a bit about the new mixing room!
“Sumsound At Trackdown” – an affordably priced ICON mixing room on the Fox lot at Sydney.
An "unfinished" Sumsound at Trackdown front wall
Lots of techy details coming…feel free to skip if you’re not into it…
Heart of the studio is an 8 core “Nehalem” HD3Accel rig with a D-Command ES 24 sitting in a lovely custom made desk running lots of plugs; McDSP, Sonnox, SoundToys, Waves 360, Brainworx, URS amongst others. Attached to that system is then a Video satellite (8 core Xeon) running Media Composer but it also loads up PTLE for HD Quicktime workflows (ProRes, DVCPro etc)
The video satellite would be silly unless we could show that picture nicely – so, a 150′ (3.5m wide) 16″9 projection screen with the LCR speakers mounted behind. Responsible for display of the HD image is a current generation Sony BRAVIA projector. This projector is rather massive weighing in close to 10kgs but it’s ridiculously quiet! (Thankfully!)
Bass management is being handled by the Waves 360 bundle, but interesting the sub channel is then split through a crossover into two subs. The idea here being dual subs, time and phase aligned and positioned carefully should give a smoother bottom end in the room, rather than a single point source. Room EQ curves are then through the Serato RANE 31 band graphic plugin suite. Benefit being we can tune the room to flat, small room XCurve or Large room XCurve, and play around with them until we find the best translation to the larger rooms in town like Soundfirm, Deluxe or Audioloc.
Monitoring, well, you could accuse me of being a company man…my near fields for several years have been the co-designed PMC/Digidesign RM2s. I love the transmission line design and the incredibly smooth bottom end. Then the satellites I’ve gone with the new DSM series. 4 x DSM2s and a DSM3 centre. What I dig about the DSMs is the great imaging but also the filter section on the back – you can really go to town tailoring these speakers to your own needs.
The room is psuedo “coffin shaped” – 6m deep and about 7m at is widest, an even sided trapezium making up the front of the room and then the rear walls are joined in the middle behind the mix position. To place the mixer as far back from the LCRs as possible (for theatre translation) we’re using a fair amount of diffusion on the rear wall, some on the ceiling and some on the first reflection points on the side walls, and then appropriate amounts of absorption to tailor the reverb time to our liking.
So that’s Sumsound! We’re at the point of painting now, then comes the acoustics treatment(mounting RPG “Skylines” and “Hemifusors”) and calibration. We’ve taken “before” measurements of the room, and will take several measurements as we progress and I’ll post some updates as we go along – hopefully you readers are as interested in the real world effects of acoustic treatment with non-parallel walls as I am…??
Hope you’re all having a good Jan 2010 – back to work for me, tomorrow!
Just a link to a fantastic site I stumbled across in the last few weeks. It used to be a part of the online community for MIX magazine.
Lots of great video interviews with some of the biggest names in sound design and audio post.
Shameless plug, the next Pro Tools 101 course I will be teaching at UTS is open for admission and will run Feb 3-4
There will then be a follow up 110 course Feb 8-10
Hello to everyone out there!
It’s been an AWFULLY long time since Ive updated the blog and the reason was fairly simple: The site got “hacked” and I haven’t had time to figure out how to fix it!
So, a new year, a new look and lots of other bits on the horizon…
I’ll be finishing up with Avid Digidesign in January. I’ve been with the company for nearly 7 years and it’s been a great ride but I’ve desperately felt the need to get back to “the craft” and do some mixing! That said, the local management have extended the offer for me to stay involved with training and clinics and seminars, so Aus/NZ engineers, hopefully you’ll still see a bit of me flying the Avid Audio flag!
What’s this about mixing? Yes, I’ve been working hard on the weekends building false walls and getting desks built and will soon have an ICON mix room to call my own on the Fox Studios lot in Sydney. This wouldnt be possible with the support of my business partners, Trackdown Scoring Stage. The studio is called “Sumsound at Trackdown” – more on that in the future, I’ve been taking photos of the build process and I’m keen to post a bit about the acoustics design and analysis. David Spargo of Praxis Acoustics has been the guiding light behind the room’s sound.
One other change for me: as most of you can tell, I love to pass on a bit of knowledge and the local Pro School at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS Pro School) have engaged me to present the Digi curriculum throughout the year. I’m looking forwards to working with the students there in between mixing and production work.
So thats all the new stuff from me (apart from my engagement 6 months ago and buying my first house 2 months ago)!
More regular services are to continue throughout the year, so stay tuned, Happy New Year and hope you had a great holiday season!
Had to share this, many of you can possibly relate!
Hi Folks,
Sorry for the break in content.
I’m planning to shoot a few new videos shortly, ICON related, and update a few of the SD videos on Vimeo to HD. Once that’s done I’m planning to collate it all together in a logical progression of ideas to make a bit of a step by step, online ICON bootcamp to post on the DUC. Hopefully that helps. There still seems to be slow uptake on some killer features like Preview, AutoJoin and other custom fader options. I also seem a lot of clients using their ICON with its shipping default preferences so thats probably the next topic I cover.
In the meantime, here’s a short video interview with Eden from Song Zu in Sydney, a well respected advertising house. This video has been in the pipeline for quite a while, so I apologise if its dated a bit now, but the elastic audio information is just as relevent today as it was a few months ago.
Eden @ Song Zu & Elastic Audio
So, this question is to get a feel for how many of my readers are effected by “Field Recorder” workflows.
Where does your picture department get the audio that they then hand over to you with an OMF/AAF?
Hi all!
This video shows the HD QT workflow option “Video Satellite LE” in action. Jeff Komar, long time Digi employee demos two Mac pros locked together using the Pro Tools ethernet protocol. A Decklink Extreme card provides external picture on a Pro Tools LE system locked up to the main D|Command ES Pro Tools HD system.
David Gibbons is the lead of the Product Management team of Avid Audio (aka Digidesign). For many years now David has steered the direction of Pro Tools and other products under the Digi banner. In this interview David talks about his role, what he sees for the future of Avid audio and some of his personal opinions on what Avid Audio could develop next.
Interview with Avid Audio Senior Product Manager
If you have any further questions for people like Dave, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to get some further answers for you!
In this video interview from NAB last week, Gil Gowing (a regular on the DUC) demonstrates a small film mix stage (or large TV mix stage) using a variety of recent technologies including:
Multiple machine/layer control on D|Control ES
Satellite Link – locking 3 HD rigs together
Video Satellite with Avid Media Composer 3.5 for HD picture playback
Neyrinck’s VMon monitoring plug in solution with hardware controller
Various ICON Shelf products
NAB2009 ICON for Post demonstration by Gil Gowing
I’d love to know how many of you out there have seen configurations like this and how you find them in working environments? Comments always welcome!
So, first interview: Jordan Glasgow!
Jordan has worked with Digi for many years and is now the Product Manager for Post Production within the Audio division. During the interview Jordan talks about his background, the recent releases and what we can expect from Avid Audio with regards to Post production in the future. HD video linked below:
Jordan Glasgow interview on my Vimeo page
If you have any follow up questions for Jordan, please post a comment and I’ll do what I can to get som further answers from him, where possible!
Hi all,
So I took yesterday off work to edit my blog videos (yes! in Media Composer 3.5 no less!) to promote Avid…sighs…what hope does my girlfriend have?! So coming your way shortly are a couple of demos showing video satellite workflows and a few interviews with key staff from Avid Audio.
It was a tidy process – Im lucky enough to be running my Media composer on an old PC alongside my Mac G5 PTHD rig, so as soon as I finished cutting the video, I just popped the audio across and locked them up in the “Video Satellite” configuration until Id finished the audio then popped it back to MC and exported my high res QT H264s and upload to web – qed!
Off to Singapore next week to “cross-train” some of our video division on what the audio team does and things like this – yes, its really happening!
I’ve been having fun with Sonic No Noise and look forwards to trying out Izotope RX in the near future – need to pull back that trade show walla from my interview records!
Anyways, just a quick note to let you know the videos should be up very soon. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile – does anyone have any questions about Digidesign inside Avid, now as Avid Audio? The Digi User conference has been busy with a lot of discussion, a lot of it needlessly doom and gloom IMHO (but what would I know, I only work for the company, right?). What do you think of the new Avid logo?
I’d love to hear some of your thoughts – please, post some comments!
Well its late at night and tomorrow is the final day of NAB 2009.
(LINK to Video blog showing a main stage demo from yesterday for those curious)
Yesterday I managed to be a busy beaver and in between the post suite demos I was involved with (showing Stereoscopic workflows, RED workflows and Video Satellite) I managed to get even MORE interviews to cut up on my return, with folks such as:
Jordan Glasgow, head of interop for the audio side of Avid
David Gibbons, Head of Product Marketing – the guys who decide what goes in each Audio release
I thought some of you might like to see the people behind the decisions that effect us all and hear what they have to say about the “new Avid” and the directions and plans for the future.
*Don’t expect anything too controversial, if they were to reveal anything top secret to me, its not like I’m in a position to release it to the world without taking a beating, but they were absolutely a pleasure to get on camera and very willing to talk directly out there to you guys, the community of users who support us all which I think is a wonderful thing, personally.
Hmm, what has been going on? Well the stand has been packed, main stage could have used more chairs. We have had some great main stage demos, showing the basics of making music on ICON for post and some basic sound design bits, those were recorded and should go up on the Avid community site soon (linked from the side panel on the left in case you never noticed). Main stage was also demoing MC obviously, plus DS and…wait for it…Torq, from MAudio – that got peoples attention, a DJ package being shown under the Avid banner!!
I’m also hoping to get some more demo material of video satellite in action with LE and MC. Its not every day you get a chance see these configs in action without considerable trouble, so its a great opportunity to get some of the action on camera to see how it works.
So, lots of stuff to trickle out on my return! I haven’t had much time to wander the halls outside the Avid booth and the private demo suites, but hope to have a look around tomorrow. From what I hear, NAB 2009 is largely about Stereoscopic and RED workflows on the post side of things, but a bit of a case of manufacturers showing what they already have to market, with not too many new products on show.
In case you didn’t know, Media composer can edit in 3D and its well impressive, and DS can conform RED/R3D materials (dpx files) from an offline cut using Media composer in no time flat – very tidy workflow.
Thats all for Day 3, more in a few days after I get back to the other side of the world…stay tuned.
So here we go!
So if you asked me for a business card last week, it would have read “Digidesign” on it…this week, as of Monday NAB 2009, it reads Avid. New logo, new web site, new direction, new company…seriously.
Over the last 10 years, Avid as a company have had many CEOs devoted to change, to the principles of “interop” of making the audio and video arms talk and co-operate properly. For various reasons, this hasnt happened at the times when it was promised. Gary Greenfield however, is making change happen. In the last 18 months, we’ve seen some folks lets go (for better for worse) and the marketing, logistics, manufacturing, management and sales teams of the big 5 Avid companies have been slowly but surely merged into one single company. Thats right, not just merging 2 companies, but 5, at the same time!
Lots of great info about the new direction here
And lastly a fantastic showreel of what our customers do and who they are here
I managed to score an interview with Dave Lebolt and will edit that up on my return and post it up. I also grabbed an interview with Paul Neyrinck, Digi (sorry Avid Audio) 3rd party developer of many industry standard surround sound encode/decode solutions. More interviews hopefully to come!
Lastly, I saw a presentation by Larry Blake on our main stage today, talking about ICON and how its revolutionised the way he works – a great quote from him was that working with a traditional hollywood mix stage using a console and PT dubbers is like “typing up a document in word, then printing it out, then typing it up again from scratch to make a few changes, then printing it out and then typing it up again with a few changes…” His point being the lack of integration of the workflow from the sound designer right through to the mix stage when using dubbing workflows over “automation follows edit” type conform within PT. It was a great presentation, wish I could share it with you all but my camera ran out of batteries 
More from NAB soon.
Hi all, from Las Vegas!
I’ll be over here all week, helping Avid show end to end post production solutions – with particular emphasis on Video satellite HD picture workflows. I’m also looking forwards to hearing Larry Blake speak on the Avid stand – hopefully get some footage to post and share!
Avid, encompassing Digidesign, M-Audio, Sibelius, Pinnacle, Sundance Media and Softimage products, has gone through some big changes in the last year and a half since our new CEO, Gary Greenfield came on board. He’s brought on board some great new staff to help the company transform, promoted existing staff into new roles and all in all, the company is evolving into a very different entity from the one I joined 6 years ago. The key thing for Gary is “Customer success is our success” and we’ve made a tonne of structural changes to make that more of a reality.
I’m thinking this week will see some interesting developments, as NAB always does. I’ll be here and post a few topics as time permits. I’ve also brought my HDV camera with a view to gathering some interviews over here to host on the blog. Stay tuned for more news as it hits!
Where’s Avid @ NAB?
Las Vegas Convention Center
Las Vegas, Nevada USA
Booth # SU 902, South Hall
More info on guest speakers and other events at NAB is here
Hey everyone,
Just wondering what topics you’d like to see me cover next? Yes! The Blog is “interactive”!!
Hi all,
Just wanted to apologise for the gaps between the last few blog posts. Ive had some work trips recently, keeping me away from the office studio and getting videos finished…
Ive also just taken delivery of a new CPU for the office, switching from XP to OSX and need to find new screencasting software (Camtasia that I normally use isnt compatible with OSX unfortunately).
Should be back on “the air” within the week.
Ive also managed to swap out the local DCommand unit from Blue to a new ES black unit, which should help visiblity on videos in the future.
Big thanks to Brad Watts and the crew at Audio Technology magazine for their recent news item about this blog. I appreciate any help in letting folks know about the work I’m putting into the topics here and hope you’re all finding the videos and tips and tricks useful.
Lastly, if you’re in Adelaide, Sydney, Auckland or Wellington, hopefully I’ll see you at the up coming workflow clinics with Scott Wood and myself. Seats are limited, so be sure to register, by clicking HERE
Mapping on ICON blog coming up soon, promise!
So, why Blog?
For some time now, I’ve been working for Digidesign in Australia and New Zealand, demonstrating Pro Tools and helping train our clients. What I see, mostly, are engineers with tighter and tighter deadlines, long working hours and the relatively thankless task of polishing “product” for mass consumption. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, those few lucky individuals who get to craft something they believe in, that they enjoy and that they have time to create but they have the rare gigs not the usual ones!
So, my priority is and has always been, to evangelize the methods, workflows, tips and tricks that enable our pro users to save time. Time saved gives you two choices, either do more work or craft your existing work to a higher quality. Both options are vitally important goals in both the creative and “churn and burn” market sectors.
On this blog, I not only hope to impart some of that information that I’ve gleaned over the years, but also learn from you, the readers – hopefully we can have some stimulating discussion on here and I can pass on that vital feedback to Digidesign.
This blog would not be possible without a few people however. Mentors like SImon Leadley, Andy Stewart, Charles Tetaz, Bruce Emery, Gerry Nixon, Jason DeWilde, Peter Thomas and Chris McKeith amongst many others. At the end of the day, every time I have a meeting with clients, its a two way street – I learn as much from them as they hopefully get from me.
Also, I have to thank my partner Stephanie for being so supportive, patient and understanding of my ongoing problem with being a big geek.
Anyways, so where to start?? Well firstly I’d love to have folks comment here about what they would like to see. My intention was to create some videos, using screen caps and show specific features alongside discussion about how those features can help in day to day professional work. The first idea that came to mind was a feature introduced in 7.3 – Windows configs. We have a pretty good Digi video for that feature (cop out!) so I’ll just post about my experiences in the field and how people are using this feature alongside the old Memory locates, in my next blog entry.
Talk soon,
Brent
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