Moving coils and binaural spectacles!

May 10, 2013
sound design
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I have just got a couple of new mics, a pair of hydrophones so I can do some underwater tests I have planned, and a really cool induction coil pickup – it basically amplifies electromagnetic activity, really simple and sounds awesome, if you like that kinda thing.  Anyway here’s a quick vid off my phone of my first test running the little feller over the rack in the studio I was working in today – the constant interference is my Tascam dr40 chirping away, I reckon if I use a better adaptor and a decent preamp I can cut that stuff out… anyway in this context it sounds kinda nice:

Earlier in the week I was doing a test for something and was using the incredible Neumann KU-100 binaural head… bit of a pain to wield the thing around and so I made these, the most stylish specs you ever darn seen eh… it’s a pair of DPA 4060s stuck with Rycote Undercovers – missing the ear canal aspect but gives a really nice 3D depth to the recording – demos to come at some point when I get time to do something interesting with them:

binaural specs

Audi R8 V10 Plus

March 18, 2013
commercial, sound design
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‘Evolution on the Outside, Revolution on the Inside’

Well I am sure that is the case… anyway I was asked by BBH / Rogue Films to record this car, going at 205mph on a rolling road somewhere near Manchester in a freezing garage.  I went on to mix the multitrack iso recordings and add some sound design and this is the finished result:

I recorded the car with 6 different mics to capture different flavours of the engine: a dpa 4061 close to each exhaust on the chassis, a contact mic on the gearbox, an EV re20 under the floor (good for bass), and a mid-side pair of schoeps about 2/3 metres back from the car (far enough to avoid the heat) on a mic stand.  Everything had a -20db attenuator inline between the mic and the Sound Devices recorder.

Here’s Minnie my dog checking the kit list the day before:

minnieThanks to Minnie the shoot was a success other than cutting my hand on the chassis and one of my mics getting frazzled.

I worked on the sound design from my studio in Tooting, adding some details and using various plugins including Aphex Aural Exciter and Sountoys Decapitator to give the engine as much punch as possible.  I went to finish the online and tv mixes at the lovely Pure Soho and took stems to James Saunders at Jungle for the cinema mix, he’s got one of the nicest rooms in town and one of the best pairs of ears too, have a look at them here:

saundersMuch appreciation to producer Richard Adkins, creatives Olly Courtney & Tom Evans at BBH for getting me involved.  The film was directed by Mark Jenkinson from Rogue Films – look out for the tv cut and the cinema versions coming to a screen near you soon…

QI buzzers wins silver for best sound design – Promax Europe

March 18, 2013
promo, updates
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Last year I worked on a fun and challenging promo for QI – Stephen Fry’s popular program on the BBC.  The very kind Victoria O’Connell and her colleagues at BBC Worldwide entered it into the PromaxBDA Europe awards 2013, and it won a silver!

It was directed by Michaela Lowe, and my talented colleague Simon Thompson helped me with a couple of initial tests and research – here it is again if you aint seen it:

NIKO and the Sword of Light

February 19, 2013
my likes, sound design, trailer
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My talented friend Adam Jeffcoat (of Studio NX) is involved in an exciting project, a fully animated comic book for ios and android tablets.  It’s a smart idea, and what they have created already is pretty awesome.

I did some sound design for the trailer, creating some demon wind, beast noises, power sword blasts, etc etc, and it’s got the booming tones of Lewis McLeod on it to boot, recorded in the boiling heat of my old studio in Marylebone last summer.

Check it out and see if you can pledge any hard cash to help them finish the project, I reckon they are going to make something pretty special:

niko_sword

Charlie & Olivia’s rescue mission!

January 31, 2013
sound design, music, short film
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I wrote some music and did the sound design and mix for a couple of films for Nick Junior recently, and having just filled up a skiff with modular synth stuff I tried to jam as much analogue synth noise into the music as possible.  Here’s my synth setup for any geeks who care:

modularAnyone who knows me personally knows I have a bit of a synth addiction… some like their cars, well… synths are much better and they don’t depreciate.

I should cut to the chase, this film is written and directed by the most awesome Kim Majkut and Akin Akinsiku at Nickelodeon UK, and the lovely animation is by Pierre+Bertrand from Not To Scale.  It’s a beauty so have a look:

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