Alexander Lowe

And here I'm only thinking about my playback rig (Mac laptop/mini) and adding a monitor. Working on broadening my horizons. I wish every show needed LOTS of playback so I could learn how to incorporate my studio chops into this faster moving environment.

For lack of a better analogy, it's like being live engineer. The difference to me is that as a live engineer, the rest of the crew that you're dealing with (bands) rarely even know how to do their own job, let alone give the sound crew a chance to help them.

I've learned so much from this one thread.

But when you go back to the hotel, to your Mac Mini that takes less space than your laptop, you can also use the iPad as the monitor.

I say that last bit in jest.

Thanks!!

You could use any of the vnc clients such a iTap VNC Client.

You'll create a wireless network, and it will be a little sluggish, but it will work.

I'm debating the $16/month or $150/year Pro membership.

How do you all use the Pro membership? What advantages are there that have helped you?

Here is another plug-in from SPL (d-verb) that does a similar thing, and is available for PT.

It's just not as good as the UNVEIL.

http://spl.info/software/microplugs/de-verb.html

Some April Fools Day scams are just too obvious.

Yet this is not a joke. I just tried it on a track. It really works. Have to learn it a bit better, but I'll use this for some mastering once a year. Definitely for some mixing.

Bob Katz has been offering a similar processor in some of his K-System devices.

At first glance, I thought the numbers seemed high for averages, but they are the median amount.

In my independent studio world, there are many other variables that are difficult to track and add to these figures, such as barters.

I thought this was interesting information though.

http://www.bls.gov/o...t/oes274014.htm

If I win, I'm going to get a custom made Playback rig that will sound so freaking amazing, productions will stop to Ooo and Ahhh...

Oh, and I'll sign up for automatic bill payments....

As a mastering engineer, when a client brags about themselves being an audiophile, I raise my rates for them.

Really.

Because it sounds better....

Really.

No, I'm being serious. I like the sound of money.

It sounds like audiophile rubbish to me.

While your breaking in your cans, why not go out and buy some cryogenically frozen cables. They'll cost thousands, but they'll sound 1% better...

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I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?hqd4lo

The proper term is audiofools.

I did have a pair of Grados 325s that seem to get a bit better after getting pounded by a recording session. The bass seemed to reach a little farther. Might have been me though.

What about burning in microphones ??

I've got a 60's U67 that's seen plenty of burning in. It sounds amazing now (probably better back then).

But all jokes aside on the mic side of things, my 67 is a tube mic and I have had to "burn" in a few new tubes till I found the one with the least microphonics and lowest noise floor. It wasn't evident right after I put the tube in. I had to let the mic sit with a preamp set to a decent gain for a night or even 2, then in the mornings, I could get a better idea how the tube settled with my mic.

I do wish I had a bigger delete key at times.

I have met several actors who would have no problem making the jump, not to mention the odd AD and a producer or two.

Best regards,

Jim

Ha, so true!! Wasn't thinking about it in that way.

I would find it hard to play the role of hitler. I'm just literally thinking of the actor getting into character.

Maybe I'm being naive.

Do explain, Alexander! I'd like to hear a step-by-step on a simple method for making a beat map (as opposed to the convoluted way I did it the last time), in the event I get roped into another playback situation.

Sorry for the huge delay. It's been an incredible week for work...

And family life....

I will explain this for my Pro Tools workflow. Logic is a bit different.

Making a tempo map is not something that I would do the morning of the session.

First of all, I find the first downbeat of the music I'm working on. Some songs start with a quick drummers intro or some very quick melodic lead in right to the downbeat. I then cut the intro off and just work from the downbeat.

I generally zoom in on the downbeat to the point that I can see the very beginning of the hit, almost to the sample level.

I put it on the grid and place the downbeat on bar 17 (bars 1-16 gives me plenty of lead time for whatever happens...)

It's taken me 5 minutes to write this, but this usually takes about 20 seconds.

Now I count to the next bar, and place my cursor on the downbeat of bar 18. I then hit "Identify Beat" (Command "I").

I tell it to be Bar 18, Beat 1

I then create a region of that length and place it before the song start... that will help me establish a count it, that I'll get to later.

Now if your working with a loop based song (now a days 99.999% of all music... unfortunately for music), I take a look at the tempo, and if I see it's 100.1, I set my session to 100 and turn the click on. If it's off, I'll start dividing the .1 to .05 or 1.05... I'll divide till I get the click right on with the music.

It may seem like a lot of work so far, but I'm at most 5 minutes into the beat mapping if I've had to divide the beat 10 times. I may end up at 100.0275 and the click locks all the way throughout the song.

Now if it's a song that was not done to a click, I go through the song, bar by bar and using the down arrow, identify every bar. If the song is slow enough, I can do this with the song playing, identifying every bar (they will be all odd numbers) and get through a song in the length of the song.

I then can generate a click track.

How about the count in?

That first bar that I took and placed before the song start comes here.

I identify the beat (Command "I") of the top of that clip. Then I delete the clip and drag out any pickup that came before the downbeat.

I'll automate a mute on the click track so it stops for the pickups.

Looking up, that seems like a lot, but I've done it too many times to count.

I can do this for anyone in need pretty quick. Just give a shout.

What we always requested in post is for the playback song to begin exactly at 1:00:00:00, preceded by 4 beats corresponding to the tempo. I believe this technique worked pretty well for a hundred major music videos I worked on over the years. As Alex says, starting at 00:00:00:00 will confuse the editing gear, because of its inability to go "less than 0." Being an old-school guy from tape, I usually suggest at least Hour 1, but anything will work.

I work this out by doing everything I stated above, unless you want the downbeat to start on the hour.

I always start my SMPTE at 1 hour. Then I'll wait to clip the intro back on after this next step.

Older versions of Pro Tools don't like to go after hour 12, so that's another potential situation.

I got around this by setting an offset. It didn't work on one gig because the director went 4 hours past our hopeful offset. At around 10 hours the PT rig started acting funny. It would take too long to explain the whole situation and it ended up turning out well for Soul Train in the end.

All in all, I've done this so many times, it's second nature for me. Please feel free to give a shout and I'll be more than happy to offer assistance.

I feel that I've left out so much, but I'm tired and have this very gig X3 tomorrow. If you have any questions on what I've posted, give a shout and I'll try to answer.

Wish me well though, I've been hired to record on set anything that is thrown at me, and it might be a full band with choir and lead vocal to just all playback. I love it though.

I'm pretty sure I have most things covered though, and that might include a full orchestra.

different strokes for different folks...

a lot of us grew up with preroll,

I once lost a client because the PB track did not have enough preroll TC before the downbeat on their music video shoot.

If the downbeat is at hh:00:00:00 but with 30 seconds of preroll TC that is not "floating the TC", so I don't understand any issue??

I'm the same way, but I like to start TC at 1 hour just to give any mechanical machines an hour of pre roll. Pass 0:00 and your back at 23:59.

I get my downbeats to land on 01:00:30:00.

It's pretty easy for post to establish an offset at that point. They should also be also getting TOD code and my start time never changes. Post just subtracts my 1hr 30 sec from their code to establish offset and it locks up.

Also, if you give them a 4 beat click before downbeat, they should be able to use that just like a slate slap.

Also, I ALWAYS make a beat map. In PT or Logic. It's pretty simple really. I can explain this further if anyone is interested. Tonight is not the night though...

I've been looking into one of these.

http://www.rosendahl...k.com/mif4.html

Still need to find out if it will work will LE. At least to stripe code without having to hire someone with a SYNC I/O.

I do have a few different tracks of SMTPE at different rates. I'll import the SMPTE track that I need into my sessions and spit them out a single output.

Me too. Looking forward to this year, made a new group of friends, and ready to be ready.

☟ Atlanta ☟

I've been using the Impulse Response Utility that came with Logic to create them. But that was at my studio and just empty rooms.

Snapper! Thanks Richard. I could really use that in the studio.

... and it comes with a 100 day demo. Nice!!

Hot Damn!! That video was great. Thank you Richard.

Makes me want to get Altiverb.

BTW, what OS add on/feature was being used? At 3:20 in the video, Tony was rehearsing/pulling sounds from a finder window. I've seen it before but can't remember the name.

Now how do I get production to let me get these IRs......

Could there be any advantage to capturing a reverb Impulse Response for the environment of a scene?

I wonder if post would be appreciative of this file to put into a convolution reverb to re-create the ambience in ADR.

I'm a playback op, and am looking at the scenario with a full PA in front of me, boom op ready to go, and given about 2 minutes, I can capture an impulse response using the boom mic as the reference source. Feed a sweep sine wave through the PB rig and record the response.

I understand most directors will have little patience for the sweep tone, but I've had some opportunities to capture them, and the UPM might see the benefit in having it.

Or could this be considered too petty for post to bother with?

We have everything you need from a very simple one speaker set up, can accommodate music videos, and all the way up to full flying systems with sound reinforcement.

References available.

Just got a Yamaha surround system for mixing. Doing a mix on them now and the client likes how it's translating. Had the Dangerous ST and SR to handle the monitoring. We'll see how that stems out.... heheh... Also got a cart for playback. I can already see an immediate improvement from that purchase.

Ok,

I have a question to those of you who went to school for sound:

Did it really increase your chances of getting a job and has it gotten you noticed and gotten you more jobs than those people who didn't have a Doctorate in Sound?

I have a degree from Berklee. The only time that piece of paper made a difference in the job field was when I got a job as an instructor. From what I understand, it made a difference, but they didn't offer me more money or a full-time job, so go figure....$$$$$

On a personal level, it did help me have confidence that I could really learn what I needed to know once I got into the professional world of studio engineering. But it was the 90s, and those jobs were more readily available.

I would advise to find a professional that can tutor you and spend some of the money you would spend on audio schooling towards the type of equipment that would propel you forward.

Good luck!! There is always work for really hardworking people with a good attitude.