After deciding to attempt music mixing for this final project versus doing a sound design, I was looking forward to seeing how well I could do at a new area of skill for myself. That will have to wait sadly for summer to play around with, thanks to the life of an EMF student. In helping recording sound for a Film 3 group, as well as being the second editor and sound mixer, I had a long week of staring at a student film. I knew this film so much, that by the time it came to trying to music mix, my mind literally was drained of creativity.
This made me decide at crunch time to just submit this film "Welcome Home" as my final project. The initial challenge right off the bat was the fact that I had to essentially re-mix what was already mixed. Since my group was the last to film, our post production time was very streamlined, and as much as it pained me I did my mixing in Final Cut Pro. This just allowed the other editor and I to make changes as the director would give us her feedback and not effecting my Pro Tools Session.
The process I took from recreating my mix, was I wrote down all the time code for all my sounds and tracks that I had in place. In my Final Cut sequence, I stripped everything but the production dialog, as well as some extra production audio sounds. Each other sound to help this workflow out faster, I exported out as a wav file. Essentially my Pro Tools session was becoming a puzzle to recreate. This experience was fun considering the fact for some reason some of my time code marks were off by a second or two, causing me to match some things by hand. In this translation I forgot to export out two lines of dialog. This was not the end of the world since I had all the production audio on my hard drive from my recorder. I'm just happy that I was able to sync them up without the aide of any slate within Pro Tools.
It was nice getting a little extra time to mix this project, since I had a chance to get a few foley sound created. The time on the set didn't allow this to occur as much as I wanted, and in the editing process I was rushed too much to spend the time with foley. I feel the few sounds I added in, do help the film more so then the one that will be screened at the Film 3 screenings. I would however want to go back and add a bunch of footsteps sounds throughout the piece.
The hardest scene that I had to mix, and one that I was surprised turned out better then I thought it would, is the exterior pharmacy scene at the end. We unfortunately were on a main street of Bel Air, and could not get the road blocked off. Putting this on the top that we were filming at rush hour time, created a lot of car noise. People being people of course would love to scream out loud while filming as well as honk horns. The production audio amb behind the dialog is very noisy, and with shot changes, is almost inconsistent. I recall doing a little noise reduction on the noisier shots in Soundtrack Pro. The amb I recorded on set did help out the dialog a little bit, but there is still some work to be done, even if it has to be ADR. The initial wide shot is also one that I had to replace the audio with. I was not given a chance to get close enough for their audio, and the way the other shots were done, was in consistent with the wide shot so we couldn't use a closer medium wide shot, which had better audio. Luckily the girl Caroline had her face turned so you couldn't see your lips. The line from James I had play with his head turn, his lips move very slightly. I notice that it doesn't match up, but it seems to pass for people until I tell them.
Effects that I used on this project in Pro Tools included some EQ'ing for the cell phone ringing, and voice mail as well as making the parents sound muffled coming in from the front door. The effect I was most proud of is my use of delay at the conclusion of the film. This was originally to be a line from the main character, but with the advice of Plow we changed it to his girlfriend's, which also worked out better because her delivery was a lot nicer. Our final shot of the film was very anti climatic looking, and I always had the idea to make it end with the line over black. Now that I had a creepier line, I decided to play with some delay and it really adds a ghostly tone to her voice. As mentioned earlier I also did some noise reduction within Soundtrack Pro since my Pro Tools does not have that plugin. It really did help clean up some of the audio that was recorded.
I think my favorite part of the whole mix is the whole end sequence with James coming to the realization that his parents and girlfriend are dead. I always thought this scene would be best with bare minimum sound. Of course the heartbeat was attempted, but was too cheesy. I found a really cool LFE rumble that really effected and made the scene work for me. My second editor wanted a ear ringing sound, and that is a sound I thought of before. I just felt it would be too much for that long duration. We came to a compromise that I think works better where it rumbles with a ear ringing fading in slightly, and that pierces the ears at the end until the final cut to black. These textures complement each other nicely and I feel is the strongest moment of the film.
This was a great experience overall, I do want to get back in and add more AMB to the interior scenes, as they are still too quiet even with the room tone. The music choices really do help out the films emotion, yes I realize they are a little cheeseball at times, but this overly cheesy works for this film at least for myself. Maybe its the fact I accepted that this is not a great film, that I don't mind this factor. I was trying to push for the Benny Hill theme for the final sequence, and it scarily works, but sadly that is not the tone of the film. Maybe in a future remix, I will turn this into a comedy.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Minor Project: Ghostbusters 2 ADR
Even after turning in this ADR project in during Sound in Media, I knew there was still a lot to be done to the sound mix. It is just amazing how after a year and my knoweldge, not to mention better headphones, I have picked up on a lot of things that needed to be taken care of in re-mixing this project. The biggest issue I knew to fix was the lack of ambiance. This usually is where I get the most stressed in trying to create the best sense of space. I did have some alright city ambiance going on, but decided to follow the advice and replace them with a louder ambiance track. I didn't want to go too overbearing, and still put a few horns for the city sounds. It is improved in that respect and there is more presence of a city that is alive with my new sounds found.
The ambiance for the party was probably my biggest struggle to figure out for this project. It may of been due to the large number of kids that are on screen or just trying to remember what a children's party like that sounded like. I added a new party horn sound along with various children laughing and balloon sounds. This didn't seem like enough so I found the best ambient recording of children laughing and playing. The one thing I don't like about this recording is the amount of reverb that is already on the track which was a little distracting and tough for me to figure out a decent solution to remove. I did put some reverb on the track to try to blend it better, and kept the volume low enough before it became to inaudible. While I'm not particularly sold on it working for this piece, it does so in parts and most of all it sounds more natural with it on then if I removed it for the other recordings I found.
One of the changes I made which I really felt improved the piece was my music choice for the beginning scene in New York. As much as I loved the E.S. Posthumus track I used, I looked for another one just to create a different feeling. First I looked at another E.S. Posthumus track that was used in the rough cut, but the more I listened I realized in terms of the mix it was too bombastic and overpowerered my ohter sounds. Moving on from them, I went to my next favortie epic instrumental band of Two Steps from Hell for their track "Hearts of Courage." It just worked a lot better then any of the previous music selections and really created the exciting mood I was hoping for.
My use of Reason for this project came in the form of adding some musical texture to the hallway portion before the party is revealed. I really was trying to over-dramatize the scene before the joke kicks in that the Ghostbusters are essentially a party clown. Reason had a bunch of nice impact sounds that really worked for what I wanted. All of my patches were found under the NN-XT instrument. Not only in the impacts, but also this new engine sound that I played under the other one I had to create a noisier car. Also Reason was used for the Foley on the Ecto-1 doors that I used the sequencer in Pro Tools to match up.
Other improvements I made was to place some EQ on the ADR tracks, sync up some of the more noticebale lines that were off. There were a few that I feel like I should of gotten recorded better when I first did this project. But I made the best I could without getting back in the labs. When I did get stuck on this project I would reference back to the scene in Ghostbusters 2, where ironically I found that I actually have more ambient sounds then the actual film. And to the cherry on top of all this re-mixing was sampling the actual Ecto-1 siren into my project, which really adds more legitimacy to what I did. I feel like I could spend many more hours and days mixing this project, but overall I am pleased with the improvements made. It sounds a lot better then it has prior and maybe this will be accepted more by the Ghostbusters community.
The ambiance for the party was probably my biggest struggle to figure out for this project. It may of been due to the large number of kids that are on screen or just trying to remember what a children's party like that sounded like. I added a new party horn sound along with various children laughing and balloon sounds. This didn't seem like enough so I found the best ambient recording of children laughing and playing. The one thing I don't like about this recording is the amount of reverb that is already on the track which was a little distracting and tough for me to figure out a decent solution to remove. I did put some reverb on the track to try to blend it better, and kept the volume low enough before it became to inaudible. While I'm not particularly sold on it working for this piece, it does so in parts and most of all it sounds more natural with it on then if I removed it for the other recordings I found.
One of the changes I made which I really felt improved the piece was my music choice for the beginning scene in New York. As much as I loved the E.S. Posthumus track I used, I looked for another one just to create a different feeling. First I looked at another E.S. Posthumus track that was used in the rough cut, but the more I listened I realized in terms of the mix it was too bombastic and overpowerered my ohter sounds. Moving on from them, I went to my next favortie epic instrumental band of Two Steps from Hell for their track "Hearts of Courage." It just worked a lot better then any of the previous music selections and really created the exciting mood I was hoping for.
My use of Reason for this project came in the form of adding some musical texture to the hallway portion before the party is revealed. I really was trying to over-dramatize the scene before the joke kicks in that the Ghostbusters are essentially a party clown. Reason had a bunch of nice impact sounds that really worked for what I wanted. All of my patches were found under the NN-XT instrument. Not only in the impacts, but also this new engine sound that I played under the other one I had to create a noisier car. Also Reason was used for the Foley on the Ecto-1 doors that I used the sequencer in Pro Tools to match up.
Other improvements I made was to place some EQ on the ADR tracks, sync up some of the more noticebale lines that were off. There were a few that I feel like I should of gotten recorded better when I first did this project. But I made the best I could without getting back in the labs. When I did get stuck on this project I would reference back to the scene in Ghostbusters 2, where ironically I found that I actually have more ambient sounds then the actual film. And to the cherry on top of all this re-mixing was sampling the actual Ecto-1 siren into my project, which really adds more legitimacy to what I did. I feel like I could spend many more hours and days mixing this project, but overall I am pleased with the improvements made. It sounds a lot better then it has prior and maybe this will be accepted more by the Ghostbusters community.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.
In this digital age of software such as Reason, Pro Tools, and even Garage Band the idea of a single person recording and engineering a song is a very common occurence. Would you be as shocked as I was to learn that this was the very case for one of the most iconcic songs of 80’s popular culture. If you want to get a song recorded and mixed at the very last minute you should be calling Ray Parker Jr.
It is nice to know that procrastination does not stop at college and continues on to the Hollywood level of filmmaking. That was the story behind how Ray Parker Jr. landed the gig of recording a song for the classic 80’s film Ghostbusters. Parker's old friend Gary LeMel came to him and asked him to see if he would watch this film Ghostbusters and write a song for it. The only catch was that he only had two days to get this song to him. Talk about pressure. Nearing the deadline by hours Parker was finally struck with inspiration on how to apply the word Ghostbusters into a song. Only problem was with this being so late there was no time to call in any band members, he would have to play all the instruments himself.
What I love about this mix, espeically after reading about how it was gestated, is just how busy it sounds but the same time it is very simplistic in terms of tracks. A great quote from Parker Jr. about the instruments played is “It sounds big, but it's really just one rhythm guitar part, one lead guitar part, a horn keyboard [synth] part, one bass part, one drum part and some synthesizer overdubs. Then I overdubbed the sax later.” None of the tracks are even doubled up, each instrument is just it's own track. I would really just love and feel relieved if I ever had to deal with just a 9 track song like this one.
It is nice to know that procrastination does not stop at college and continues on to the Hollywood level of filmmaking. That was the story behind how Ray Parker Jr. landed the gig of recording a song for the classic 80’s film Ghostbusters. Parker's old friend Gary LeMel came to him and asked him to see if he would watch this film Ghostbusters and write a song for it. The only catch was that he only had two days to get this song to him. Talk about pressure. Nearing the deadline by hours Parker was finally struck with inspiration on how to apply the word Ghostbusters into a song. Only problem was with this being so late there was no time to call in any band members, he would have to play all the instruments himself.
What I love about this mix, espeically after reading about how it was gestated, is just how busy it sounds but the same time it is very simplistic in terms of tracks. A great quote from Parker Jr. about the instruments played is “It sounds big, but it's really just one rhythm guitar part, one lead guitar part, a horn keyboard [synth] part, one bass part, one drum part and some synthesizer overdubs. Then I overdubbed the sax later.” None of the tracks are even doubled up, each instrument is just it's own track. I would really just love and feel relieved if I ever had to deal with just a 9 track song like this one.
All of this is a result of everything being down to the wire, but it actually turns out to be very effective. Trying to actually pinpoint when each instrument would pop up sometimes would drive me nuts just because they all play off of each other so well. It was part of the reason why I was having such an issue trying to replicate it in Reason.
Even with all the synth parts that appear, there is no fancy mixing effects to be heard. This could be either due to the fact time was of the essence but Parker Jr. recalled "It was one of those days when everything came together — bang, bang, bang — and it didn't seem like I could do anything wrong. The bass part sounded great, the drums were big. Everything sounded fat." Knowing this really inspires me that my work doesn't always need to rely on plug-ins to get something that is studio caliber. Sometimes you just got to put that effort in the raw recording and get it right before you hit any hardware. If I look at it this way in terms of trying to replicate, as long as I had the raw recordings I would have the song Ghostbusters sounding perfect.
Instruments: Rhythm Guitar, Lead Guitar, Bass, Drums, Synths: Korg Poly 61, Jupiter 6, Horn Keyboard
Mixing Board: MCI -24 and MCI Multitracks
Engineer: Ray Parker Jr. and Steve Holquist
Studio Recorded: Ameraycan
Studio Mastered: Ameraycan
Mix Analysis:
Rhythm guitar starts to play an emergency vehicle sirenesque rhythm and continues throughout the song, there is some panning to the right in the beginning (00:00- 1:00)
What I believe to be some of the horn keyboards start to play their first part (00:02 - 00:11)
Lead guitar makes its entrance into the song with an echoy strum to set up the main beat (00:06 - 00:09)
Snare drums start off a rhythm that transitions into the main drum beat (00:10 - 00:12)
Drums, and both guitar parts continue a beat throughout the remaining of the song (00:12 - 1:00)
One of the synth keyboards plays a part at (00:12)
Synth returns with one of the main lines at (00:20 - 00:28)
First vocal part of the song appears with "Ghostbusters" being yelled (00:26)
Ray Parker Jr. has his first vocal part (00:29 - 00:34)
Second apperance of the "Ghostbusters" shouting (00:35)
Ray Parker Jr. has his second vocal part (00:36 - 00:42)
Third apperance of "Ghostbusters" vocal (00:43)
The horn synth keyboard line begins to play (00:45 - 01:00)
Ray Parker Jr. vocal of "I ain't afraid of no ghosts" (00:51 - 01:00
Ray Parker Jr has also recorded with such artists as Barry White, Stanley Turrentine, Tina Turner, Boz Scaggs, Herbie Hancock
Research: http://mixonline.com/recording/interviews/audio_ray_parker_jrs/index.html
Monday, March 7, 2011
Reason Replication - The Final Countdown
Getting to know a new piece of software is always filled with pain, but excitement as things start to go together. It has been that way as I learned Final Cut Pro, Pro Tools, software from Adobe, and now I can add Reason to this list. I have heard of Reason before but never touched it prior to this class. To say it has overwhelmed me with the amount of options would be an understatement, but after completing this assignment I am ready to delve deeper into this software and learn some creative uses for it in my work.
You would think that with all my knowledge of sound design, and total lack of music talent that I would of just sticked to what I knew while learning some software. But I figured where is the fun in that, I have this very powerful music creation tool so why not try something out of the box for myself. I am happy that I decided to go this route, but same time wish I chose a more beat centric song.
My decision to go from Ghostbusters to The Final Countdown came from my lack of being able to teach myself the main synth part of Ghostbusters. But I was able to find an easy to follow tutorial on The Final Countdown that inspired me. After listening to The Final Countdown again, paying attention to the drone sounds that resonated in the first 30 seconds I figured this wouldn't really drive me nuts. I quickly realized that I should never be this naive when it comes to music creation.
I could not find any helpful research about the creation of the song in the actual mix other then the type of keyboards that they used for the infamous synth line. This made me pretty much attempt to create this song from ear, which with my lack of musical skill was a real challenge.
The strongest aspect of what I had going for this song was finding a Thor patch called The Valley that really was close enough sounding to the Yamaha synthesizer used in the actual song. The notes I played for this part sound fairly accurate to myself, the beat maybe off a bit, since when I tried to play with the song it would match at parts but I would quickly loose my rhythm. This resulted in me playing it in the beat that I could remember or at least sounded right to myself. Even if the rest of the beginning failed I would at least end on a fairly high note, as we all can laugh and smile at this amazing synth line.
Trying to find the correct drone sounds was a real challenge, I even tried to play around with a helicopter sample sound but it didn't end up working. Once again I used a Thor patch to help me out entitled Listening. I created one drone that would be played throughout the entire song, and in the beginning a few higher notes of this patch. It is passable for something that sounds like the original song, it doesn't quite have the same heft to it but it works for what I was attempting.
A fun fact I noticed trying to replicate the song that I never seemed to pick up on before, was the fact there are lasers being shot during the songs intro. To help my song become an epic space battle I used Malstrom synthesizer with an amazing titled patch called Terminator. I mixed these lower then my rough cut just so they weren't too overpowering.
I investigated playing around with Kong drum kit for that sound in the beginning that sounds like someone dropping a wrench in a hallway or something that nature. With some playful modification of the the pitch and decay I used a conveniently pre-reverbed sample called BigVerb.
Accompany the synth line there is this very synthy vocal sound which I recreated with the good ole NN-XT and monk choir patch. It was very tough trying to find a vocal choir sound that sounded both majestic but same time still synth. The Monkchoir gave me both of those attributes, even if it doesn't sound as big as the one in the actual song.
Out of all the tracks for me to create, the one I really don't think I nailed at all and had the most trouble with was this Grand Piano I played on an NN-19. During the main synth line and synth choir in the original song, there is a piano sound that plays sporadically. The problem that I had was since this song is so overblown with cheesy production values, it was very hard for me to monitor the exact timing on how the piano parts were played. I was able to get a ball park on when I thought it was played, but same time I felt like there were parts I was missing due to everything else going on. In addition to timing it was also hard to hear the exact notes that were being played. I had to keep experiment with octaves until I got something that sounded sort of like the same finger progression. This is one time where I really wish I found an actual source type files of this part just to isolate it.
Overall I feel fairly satisfied with my replication. I can easily say this is nowhere an exact replication, but for myself with not having much musical knowledge it at least reminds me enough of the intro to get by. I did have a tough time trying to mix all of these tracks together and it something I feel like I will keep constantly adjusting even after I turn it in. While there isn't a huge number of tracks, what is there in the intro are very bombastic sounds that are tough to balance out so one doesn't overpower the other. However I made sure that the main synth line was mixed the loudest and stood out above all the other textures, since this is the main part of the song that we all remember and hum all day long.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Chicago
Supervising Sound Editor - Maurice Schell
Dialogue Editor - Laura Civiello
Sound Effects Editor - Eytan Mirksy
Sound Re-recording Mixer - Michael Minkler and Dominick Travellla
Re-recording studio - Sound One Studio Two in New York City
When it comes to the sound categories for the Academy Awards there are usually two types of films that are likely to sweep the category in any given year. It would be either the big blockbuster action film of the year like Jurassic Park, or in the year I looked at a musical like Chicago. The reason why a category like sound mixing really gets musicals noticed is because of all the intricacies of the sound mix. This is a type of film where the music is the true focus of the film. Sure there is a narrative most of the type, but while the dialog may be good the reason we watch these films is for the lavish musical numbers. What makes this tricky for a re-recording mixer is for the fact that you can’t just have the music take up the sound mix. There still maybe dialog that is intertwined in the numbers as well as sound effects to help create the space of the musical performance.
One of the unique aspects of “Chicago” as a musical is all the songs are not performed in a sense of reality. They are all fantastical and through the mind of the characters not set in the real world where the actual narrative is going on. One of the Re-recording mixers Dominick Travella explained this situation as "One of the challenges with the audio was to keep a consistency between fantasy and reality, but also make a defining line between the two," Tavella explains. "So now you're off in never-never land, but you still want to stay connected with the earth. This is done visually and editorially, and the sound has to support that structural notion."
This challenge is present in the scene I looked at in the movie of the “Mister Cellophane” song performance. During the course of the song there is a scene between Amos (John C. Reiley) meeting Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) in his office. It is a nice stark contrast from the actual song performance where Amos is singing in an empty theater to a lawyer office with a lot more ambiance going on. The music plays throughout both locations but there is a distinct difference in the sounds heard that allow you not to be confused on if these office meetings are still a thing of fantasy.
While “Mister Cellophane” maybe one of the simplest performances throughout the entire film, it is a very good demonstration on how the sound mix was approached in a musical performance. Even in just an empty theater there is still some sound effects that are needed to be put in to go along with dance moves. A problem occurred however with the Foley work not sounding proper from their recording. A solution that was created involved to play “them at half speed, which thickened them up and made them denser, so the sound had a lot more weight. Then we pitched them up. He had these big shoes on, so instead of sounding like empty shoes, the shuffle has a real determination behind it." With the pitch adjusted Amos’ shoes sound very demanding and noticeable. It almost seems to emulate an entire chorus line shuffling at once, which really helps make this performance even bigger in this empty space. Another nice touch that is done in addition to the shuffling sounds is to put reverb on his voice which really allowed the theater to feel empty. Sometimes the most simple scenes are the ones that really stand out in how effective the sound mix is.
The films mix was created in Pro Tools using a “featured-loaded DFC console.” This would be their bread and butter to do all the pitch changing on sounds and instruments in order to make sure everything went along with each other properly. With this being a musical, there could of been upwards of 64 tracks dedicated to music alone at one time. Depending on the scene this could of included 32 for the band, 16 for vocals, and 16 for an underscore by Danny Elfman. The other Re-Recording Mixer Michael Minkler explained his blessing for these not being just raw recordings so he “had the flexibility to do anything I wanted at any time, but I didn't have to do a lot of processing because the cleanliness, the EQ, and overall leveling had been taken care of.”
While not having the same fancy board they had access, knowing that the main focus of the sound mix was pitch bending is something that I could easily mess around with with the plug ins I have. This actually is a different idea I never really thought of to make everything sound in rhythm with each other. This keeps it a lot easier on the ears and never takes you out of the sound mix since everything is at around the same key. For a musical especially this is a key idea that I will apply if I ever cross that path. Ironically another film I would compare Chicago to in terms of sound is the Bob Fosse Musical “All That Jazz” (Fosse also created Chicago the stage play). The musical finale to “All that Jazz” is similar to “Chicago” with it being set in fantasy but trying create a theatrical stage version of the song.
Other work by Michael Minkler includes Red, Hot Tub Time Machine, and Into the Wild
Other work by Dominick Travella includes Black Swan, The Wrestler and Mamma Mia!
Research:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050831021531/http://audiomedia.com/redesign-2003/regional-issues/issue-european/2003/2003-03/html/uk-0303-fc/0303-fc-f.htm
Chicago Mix Analysis:
Amos continues to sing Mister Cellphone on an empty stage in an empty theater. There is reverb placed on his voice to create this space (1:12:39 - 1:12:59)
Foley sound for the hat being tossed to his other hand (1:12:56)
Billy Flynn grabs telephone and foley work for that sound. (1:13:01)
Dialog occurs between Amos and Billy in an office setting (1:13:01 - 1:13:04)
Mister Cellophone music starts to underscore the office and transition back to the stage (1:13:03)
Foley shuffling on Amos that has been pitched shifted (1:13:09 - 1:13:44)
Reverb on Amos’ voice again for the empty theater (1:13:46)
More of the same shuffling done prior returns (1:13:50 - 1:13:53)
More reverb is placed on Amos’ voice (1:13:55 - 1:14:05)
Shuffling again from Amos that has been pitch shifted (1:14:06 - 1:14:07)
Dialog from Amos with some reverb for being in an office space as the music begins fades out. (1:14:08 - 1:14:12)
Door slams and some heavy reverb on it to give it a real punch and causes the final notes of the song to finish fading out transitioning to the next scene like the final curtain in a stage performance. (1:14:12)
Monday, February 28, 2011
Scott Pilrim Vs. The World
Sound Designer: James Boyle
Supervising Sound Editor: Julian Slater
Dialog Editor: Zak Melemendjian
Sound Effects Editor: Ben Meechan
Re-Recording Mixer: Chris Burdon
Re-Recording Studio: De Lane Lea Studios
This weeks mix analysis for myself comes at a pretty timely time following the Academy Awards. Yes it is true that Inception had amazing sound, but the same time re-watching “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” I realize that the Academy really missed the boat on something that is truly unique. All the nuances of this sound mix really pop out at me now, and the fact that this was snubbed really is such a shame.
What really stands out for the sounds in “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” is how it blends 8-bit sounds with realistic sounds to create a very unique take on what we would consider a punch to sound like. The entire plot of the movie is pretty much a video game with Scott having to go from one boss fight to another in order to earn the love of Ramona Flowers. Supervising Sound Editor Julian Slater described the reasoning for this as “We knew from the outset that using real 8 bits punches etc were not going to cut it within a modern cinematical soundtrack. Not only because they would not have the weight and low end required but also because we needed to come up with a bunch new variants.” (http://designingsound.org/2010/08/scott-pilgrim-v-the-world-exclusive-interview-with-julian-slater/)
To create some of these 8-bit sounds they modified an ancient Atari game machine into essentially a synthesizer that they could generate sounds from along with doing a human beatbox vocal sounds. These techniques helped to create a unique take on video game sounds, while even though they did lift some sounds from games like Sonic the Hedgehog or The Legend of Zelda, there was a fresh quality to everything about “Scott Pilgrim” Each of the 8-bit sounds in the fight would also be manipulated differently to give each fight its own unique flavor, since they are all completely different types of encounters.
Moving away from just the 8-bit side of the sound effects, actual post production effects like reverb and delays played a huge part in the film. There are plenty of times throughout the film where a characters voice would be echoed and repeated as if they were in a great hall with a giant ceiling. The selection of the movie of the movie I looked at, the fight with Roxie, made great use of these effects. In multiple occasions Roxie would flip around and her voice is given dominance by having it echoed in the space of the club they are fighting in. It adds to her character in the sense her powers verge on telepathic with her ability to disappear and be invisible.
Another interesting thing about the sound mix for this fight was the tremendous use of pans for Roxie and Ramona’s weapons. With the weapon of choice for Roxie being a chain metal whip there is not a moment where it isn’t in the same location for a second. With it moving throughout the space it is paned all around in the mix. The Re-Recording Mixer Chris Burdon mentioned in an interview with SoundWorks about how this scene provided them “an opportunity to go crazy with the surround, or really go surround heavy.” (http://soundworkscollection.com/scottpilgrim) The craziness really comes through in this scene with your ears being assaulted with sound from all over. It really helps pull you into this space and make you feel like you are in this club watching the craziness ensue.
While not really pertaining to this scene, there are very unique takes on the idea of a “woosh” camera move in the film. Instead of just using a traditional “woosh” sound effect to go along with the fast move, in this film it was decided to use diagetic sounds for the space that they are in for a particular scene. There was this scene in a coffee shop and the camera pans from Scott to Ramona and the sound that accompanies this camera move is a coffee machine. It just is a very unique approach to sound on a film and really adds a fresh and just fun vitality to the film as a whole. It really is hard to find a film to compare this sound mix to, if anything it bares in feeling at least resemblance to Edgar Wrights other two films of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” for the sheer fact that sound is such an important element to the films overall feeling.
Other work done by Chris Burdon as a Re-Recording mixer includes Kick Ass, Gnomeo and Juliet and the upcoming film Paul (featuring Wright regulars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost)
A film like this makes me want to sit down in MC006 and go crazy with the surround sound and pan sound effects all over the place. While it does seem like a crazy prospect, I am confident that I would be able to do the circular type panning effect through a tedious process of sending sounds to specific speakers.
Mix Analysis:
Scott and Ramona have a conversation in a club setting. The music is EQ’d to appear diagetic and mixed with background ambiance. There is some reverb on their voices (1:14:10-1:1:4:18)
Roxie teleports in with a distorted sound and punches Scott with a punch and impact sound of glass breaking. There is reverb on Scott’s impact to the ground that leads to a drone (1:14:18 - 1:14:25)
Scott has a voice over moment in his mind with some heavy reverb (1:14:26 - 1:14:28)
Three way conversation between Scott, Ramona, and Roxie with the background ambiance repeating itself with the same effects (1:14:28 - 1:14:36)
Roxies voice gets repeated over and over again, most likely with a blend of delay and EQ to create this underwateresque sound, and some reverb mixed in as well (1:14:36 - 1:14:38)
Roxie moans and gets her voice reverbed and leads to another drone (1:14:40-1:14:43)
Scott’s mind is seen visually with a meter and a woosh sound and drone accompany the cash register sound when the arrow moves over on the meter (1:14:44 - 1:14:46)
Same setup repeats as both for another three way conversation with Scott, Ramona, Roxie (1:14:46 - 1:14:56)
Roxie’s voice gets some delay on it while she flips around. During this flip the music in the background looses its EQ and goes from being diagetic to non diagetic (1:14:55- 1:15:02)
A brief moment of silence through some EQ minus the club beat that is fully audible (1:15:03 - 1:15:05)
An 8-bit sound appears for the Fight title (1:15:05)
Roxie’s voice recieves some more delay as she once again flips around (1:15:06 - 1:15:08)
Roxie and Ramona have a conversation and the music stays non diagetic (1:15:09 - 1:15:15)
Roxie pulls out her whip with lots of pans of woosh and impact sounds to go along with her movement (1:15:15 - 1:15:20)
Ramona pulls out her hammer with its own woosh sound and is mixed with some reverb and an 8 bit sound (1:15:20 - 1:15:25)
Roxie and Ramona begin their epic fight and there is lots of panning of their weapons sound effects in the space. The musics level rises as well to help create the beat for the action (1:15:26 - 1:15:40)
Supervising Sound Editor: Julian Slater
Dialog Editor: Zak Melemendjian
Sound Effects Editor: Ben Meechan
Re-Recording Mixer: Chris Burdon
Re-Recording Studio: De Lane Lea Studios
This weeks mix analysis for myself comes at a pretty timely time following the Academy Awards. Yes it is true that Inception had amazing sound, but the same time re-watching “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” I realize that the Academy really missed the boat on something that is truly unique. All the nuances of this sound mix really pop out at me now, and the fact that this was snubbed really is such a shame.
What really stands out for the sounds in “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” is how it blends 8-bit sounds with realistic sounds to create a very unique take on what we would consider a punch to sound like. The entire plot of the movie is pretty much a video game with Scott having to go from one boss fight to another in order to earn the love of Ramona Flowers. Supervising Sound Editor Julian Slater described the reasoning for this as “We knew from the outset that using real 8 bits punches etc were not going to cut it within a modern cinematical soundtrack. Not only because they would not have the weight and low end required but also because we needed to come up with a bunch new variants.” (http://designingsound.org/2010/08/scott-pilgrim-v-the-world-exclusive-interview-with-julian-slater/)
To create some of these 8-bit sounds they modified an ancient Atari game machine into essentially a synthesizer that they could generate sounds from along with doing a human beatbox vocal sounds. These techniques helped to create a unique take on video game sounds, while even though they did lift some sounds from games like Sonic the Hedgehog or The Legend of Zelda, there was a fresh quality to everything about “Scott Pilgrim” Each of the 8-bit sounds in the fight would also be manipulated differently to give each fight its own unique flavor, since they are all completely different types of encounters.
Moving away from just the 8-bit side of the sound effects, actual post production effects like reverb and delays played a huge part in the film. There are plenty of times throughout the film where a characters voice would be echoed and repeated as if they were in a great hall with a giant ceiling. The selection of the movie of the movie I looked at, the fight with Roxie, made great use of these effects. In multiple occasions Roxie would flip around and her voice is given dominance by having it echoed in the space of the club they are fighting in. It adds to her character in the sense her powers verge on telepathic with her ability to disappear and be invisible.
Another interesting thing about the sound mix for this fight was the tremendous use of pans for Roxie and Ramona’s weapons. With the weapon of choice for Roxie being a chain metal whip there is not a moment where it isn’t in the same location for a second. With it moving throughout the space it is paned all around in the mix. The Re-Recording Mixer Chris Burdon mentioned in an interview with SoundWorks about how this scene provided them “an opportunity to go crazy with the surround, or really go surround heavy.” (http://soundworkscollection.com/scottpilgrim) The craziness really comes through in this scene with your ears being assaulted with sound from all over. It really helps pull you into this space and make you feel like you are in this club watching the craziness ensue.
While not really pertaining to this scene, there are very unique takes on the idea of a “woosh” camera move in the film. Instead of just using a traditional “woosh” sound effect to go along with the fast move, in this film it was decided to use diagetic sounds for the space that they are in for a particular scene. There was this scene in a coffee shop and the camera pans from Scott to Ramona and the sound that accompanies this camera move is a coffee machine. It just is a very unique approach to sound on a film and really adds a fresh and just fun vitality to the film as a whole. It really is hard to find a film to compare this sound mix to, if anything it bares in feeling at least resemblance to Edgar Wrights other two films of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” for the sheer fact that sound is such an important element to the films overall feeling.
Other work done by Chris Burdon as a Re-Recording mixer includes Kick Ass, Gnomeo and Juliet and the upcoming film Paul (featuring Wright regulars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost)
A film like this makes me want to sit down in MC006 and go crazy with the surround sound and pan sound effects all over the place. While it does seem like a crazy prospect, I am confident that I would be able to do the circular type panning effect through a tedious process of sending sounds to specific speakers.
Mix Analysis:
Scott and Ramona have a conversation in a club setting. The music is EQ’d to appear diagetic and mixed with background ambiance. There is some reverb on their voices (1:14:10-1:1:4:18)
Roxie teleports in with a distorted sound and punches Scott with a punch and impact sound of glass breaking. There is reverb on Scott’s impact to the ground that leads to a drone (1:14:18 - 1:14:25)
Scott has a voice over moment in his mind with some heavy reverb (1:14:26 - 1:14:28)
Three way conversation between Scott, Ramona, and Roxie with the background ambiance repeating itself with the same effects (1:14:28 - 1:14:36)
Roxies voice gets repeated over and over again, most likely with a blend of delay and EQ to create this underwateresque sound, and some reverb mixed in as well (1:14:36 - 1:14:38)
Roxie moans and gets her voice reverbed and leads to another drone (1:14:40-1:14:43)
Scott’s mind is seen visually with a meter and a woosh sound and drone accompany the cash register sound when the arrow moves over on the meter (1:14:44 - 1:14:46)
Same setup repeats as both for another three way conversation with Scott, Ramona, Roxie (1:14:46 - 1:14:56)
Roxie’s voice gets some delay on it while she flips around. During this flip the music in the background looses its EQ and goes from being diagetic to non diagetic (1:14:55- 1:15:02)
A brief moment of silence through some EQ minus the club beat that is fully audible (1:15:03 - 1:15:05)
An 8-bit sound appears for the Fight title (1:15:05)
Roxie’s voice recieves some more delay as she once again flips around (1:15:06 - 1:15:08)
Roxie and Ramona have a conversation and the music stays non diagetic (1:15:09 - 1:15:15)
Roxie pulls out her whip with lots of pans of woosh and impact sounds to go along with her movement (1:15:15 - 1:15:20)
Ramona pulls out her hammer with its own woosh sound and is mixed with some reverb and an 8 bit sound (1:15:20 - 1:15:25)
Roxie and Ramona begin their epic fight and there is lots of panning of their weapons sound effects in the space. The musics level rises as well to help create the beat for the action (1:15:26 - 1:15:40)
Monday, February 21, 2011
Mixing Analysis #2 - "Surrender"
For myself the track I most associate with the band Cheap Trick is their 1976 track “Surrender” from their Heaven Tonight album. It is just one of those songs I can’t help but find incredibly catchy and one that I would be humming all day long. In my younger years I never really appreciated songs for how well they can be mixed. It was just something I took for granted. But now with my stronger audio knowledge, as well as a good pair of headphones the layers of this song are more apparent to me now, and this is such a fun mix of a song.
What I really like about this song is how all the instruments start up at the same time. It begins initially with just a second of lonely drums, but after that a huge blast of music comes your way. There are multiple tracks consisting of rhythm and lead guitars, bass, and even a synthesizer track that is used to help emulate a violin strings sound. While I do enjoy songs that build up all the instruments introduction, on a song like “Surrender” I just always found the huge wall of music that is the songs introduction to be just fun. There is no me anxiously awaiting the big build up to all the music. I can instantly hear the drum beat in the beginning and just know what is coming my way. This song really helps set a standard for similar teen anthems like “We’re Not Going to Take It” by Twisted Sister.
One of the nice subtle touches that I really found well mixed by the mixing engineer of Gary Ladinsky is a variation on a lyric that occurs near the end of the song. Ladinsky describes this moment as “the hardest thing I remember doing was, they decided at the end, after all the backgrounds were completed, they wanted to go back and go, ‘Oh, let's put our names in there. Let's go “Bun E.'s alright, Tommy's alright, Robin's alright, Rick's alright, we're all alright, we're all alright.”’ And that was scary, in that I had to punch in on the tracks that we already had recorded vocals and stacked the vocals on. I wasn't even sure they knew what they were doing.”
This is one of those moments of the song that I tended to do a double take on. If I wasn’t paying attention for it I would of just felt like I was hearing the background vocals as its normal lyric. It is a nice touch for those who notice it, and in fact grew in popularity and would become a big part of the bands live performance of the song.
Ladinsky made good use of EQ on the multiple guitars in his mix sessions by utilizing the B&B equalizer module, which he said “I think it just fattened it up for when it popped in the chorus.” One of the snare drum tracks recieved a Pultec for its EQ. One of the neat mixing tricks he did with the vocals was to double them up, which in mixing he would adjust both parameters on the lead and doubled vocals “through a pair of 1176s” to help limit both tracks.
Reverb on vocals through using a EMT 250 set to chorus mode. The set up of the session involved three different sends. The first send was a live chamber, the second was the 250 and the third was “a phaser effect with an Eventide unit.” In the actual recording of the vocals there was compression utizlied from the UREI 1176 on the vocals coming from a Neumann 47 FET.
While most of the effects where done with physical modules, this shouldn’t be too hard for me to replicate within a software like Reason or Pro Tools, with the powerful reverb and EQ tools they can offer.
Mix Analysis:
Starts off with drums, to my knowledge would be a snare drum leading charge (00:00)
The multiple guitars, bass, and sythesizer enter to complement the drum track all at once for the introduction, and to be repeated throughout the song. In addition to EQ on the tracks, there is some panning of the lead guitar to the right (00:01)
First set of vocals kick in with Reverb placed on them for a slight echo effect (00:15)
First Chorus with the same instruments playing to the fullest, and vocals have reverb on them still but this time there is multiple vocal tracks with some backing vocals that harmonize to complete the chorus (00:43-1:03)
Instruments: Electric Guitar (Lead, two rhythm guitars) Bass (8 and 12 string), Drums(Snare and kick), Vocals (Lead and Background vocal tracks doubled up for harmony), Synthesizer (Labeled Strings Ensemble), Piano (Compressed highly and isn’t too noticeable)
Gary Ladinsky would also work on albums for Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, as well as making the switch from music to Hollywood and doing some film and TV work such as Dragnet and Weird Science
Surrender Track Information:
Engineer: Gary Ladinsky
Producer: Tom Werman
Mastering Engineer: George Marino
Studio Recorded: Sound City located inVan Nuys, Califronia
Studio Mastered: In New York
Information found at: http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_classic_tracks_cheap/index.html
What I really like about this song is how all the instruments start up at the same time. It begins initially with just a second of lonely drums, but after that a huge blast of music comes your way. There are multiple tracks consisting of rhythm and lead guitars, bass, and even a synthesizer track that is used to help emulate a violin strings sound. While I do enjoy songs that build up all the instruments introduction, on a song like “Surrender” I just always found the huge wall of music that is the songs introduction to be just fun. There is no me anxiously awaiting the big build up to all the music. I can instantly hear the drum beat in the beginning and just know what is coming my way. This song really helps set a standard for similar teen anthems like “We’re Not Going to Take It” by Twisted Sister.
One of the nice subtle touches that I really found well mixed by the mixing engineer of Gary Ladinsky is a variation on a lyric that occurs near the end of the song. Ladinsky describes this moment as “the hardest thing I remember doing was, they decided at the end, after all the backgrounds were completed, they wanted to go back and go, ‘Oh, let's put our names in there. Let's go “Bun E.'s alright, Tommy's alright, Robin's alright, Rick's alright, we're all alright, we're all alright.”’ And that was scary, in that I had to punch in on the tracks that we already had recorded vocals and stacked the vocals on. I wasn't even sure they knew what they were doing.”
This is one of those moments of the song that I tended to do a double take on. If I wasn’t paying attention for it I would of just felt like I was hearing the background vocals as its normal lyric. It is a nice touch for those who notice it, and in fact grew in popularity and would become a big part of the bands live performance of the song.
Ladinsky made good use of EQ on the multiple guitars in his mix sessions by utilizing the B&B equalizer module, which he said “I think it just fattened it up for when it popped in the chorus.” One of the snare drum tracks recieved a Pultec for its EQ. One of the neat mixing tricks he did with the vocals was to double them up, which in mixing he would adjust both parameters on the lead and doubled vocals “through a pair of 1176s” to help limit both tracks.
Reverb on vocals through using a EMT 250 set to chorus mode. The set up of the session involved three different sends. The first send was a live chamber, the second was the 250 and the third was “a phaser effect with an Eventide unit.” In the actual recording of the vocals there was compression utizlied from the UREI 1176 on the vocals coming from a Neumann 47 FET.
While most of the effects where done with physical modules, this shouldn’t be too hard for me to replicate within a software like Reason or Pro Tools, with the powerful reverb and EQ tools they can offer.
Mix Analysis:
Starts off with drums, to my knowledge would be a snare drum leading charge (00:00)
The multiple guitars, bass, and sythesizer enter to complement the drum track all at once for the introduction, and to be repeated throughout the song. In addition to EQ on the tracks, there is some panning of the lead guitar to the right (00:01)
First set of vocals kick in with Reverb placed on them for a slight echo effect (00:15)
First Chorus with the same instruments playing to the fullest, and vocals have reverb on them still but this time there is multiple vocal tracks with some backing vocals that harmonize to complete the chorus (00:43-1:03)
Instruments: Electric Guitar (Lead, two rhythm guitars) Bass (8 and 12 string), Drums(Snare and kick), Vocals (Lead and Background vocal tracks doubled up for harmony), Synthesizer (Labeled Strings Ensemble), Piano (Compressed highly and isn’t too noticeable)
Gary Ladinsky would also work on albums for Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, as well as making the switch from music to Hollywood and doing some film and TV work such as Dragnet and Weird Science
Surrender Track Information:
Engineer: Gary Ladinsky
Producer: Tom Werman
Mastering Engineer: George Marino
Studio Recorded: Sound City located inVan Nuys, Califronia
Studio Mastered: In New York
Information found at: http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_classic_tracks_cheap/index.html
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