This last week has been chaotic. I have finished for the most part A Quiet Place II trailer. I made a hydrophone; I did field recordings and I have spent a session in a recording studio. I have also contacted a few animators for audio for their animatics.
For the trailer, I spent another session in the S6 to master. I had bounced out the masters for the Foley/SFX session and the Music session. I imported these into the Dialogue session.
I then automated the volume slightly to balance it throughout the piece. I then did a simple mastering chain of EQ (using a parametric), a multiband, a compressor and then a brick wall limiter. For the EQ I lowered the highs slightly to avoid increasing the artifacts from time stretching. I used the multiband to control the High Mids slightly. For the EQ I sent it out to the FCS P3E Stereo Compressor. I had wanted to use the API2500 plugin however, the UAD plugins weren’t working. I used patch leads. Now one of the leads was doing the strangest thing. It was allowing signal through; however, the signal was coming back unaffected. I tried it in the Manly Compressor, and it did the same. As soon as I changed the lead it was fine. I set it aside to be checked and filed it away in the I don’t know what happened but it’s working now. I used Maxim as my brick wall limiter. I also setup Insight on my Master channel to see the integrated LUFS. It averaged out to -14dB in the end. I then saved the session and took a break by going to a café. I did this to treat myself as I felt accomplished as I had never mastered a track before and, to give myself time before listening to the video again. This meant I felt slightly refreshed and could watch the video with a fresh perspective. I bounced out the QuickTime and took it up to the Theatrette. I listened and was immediately terrified it was too quiet but convinced myself that if I had mastered it correctly it would be fine as it was loud in the S6 studio. When I presented it was loud enough, so my worries were unnecessary.
For the Hydrophone I followed the DIY I found during my research. I soldered a male XLR end onto a mic cable. This is something I learnt in 2018 but, it wasn’t until earlier this year that I got back into making cables. I then had to figure out how to create the circuit. Now I have not done circuit making since 2011 and that was primary school (mainly because I spent most of my final year of school in hospital with the flu missing circuit making 2.0).
I read somewhere that piezo disks should be connected in parallel not series. I connected the red wire of the piezo disks to the two positive wires in the mic cable (pin 2 and 3 of XLR). I then connected the black wires to the shielding (also known as the ground wire/pin 1). I then used Epoxy glue to stick into the metal container. Once they had hardened enough, I sealed up the container with silicone and more Epoxy glue. I also used duct tape and electrical tape to seal it completely. Sidenote, make sure to thread on the parts that need to be on the cable before soldering together the cable (I forgot on the first end and was stubborn so I threaded it on by the other end).
I had planned with Ethan to go to Kirra Beach as it is a quieter beach apart from the airport (which thanks to COVID-19 is much quieter). I had borrowed out a Zoom F8, a Sennheiser MKH416, a Rode Boom Pole and also an adapter for my headphones. The MKH416 is my preferred shotgun mic out of the ones I have access to as I find that the Rode NTG4 can miss the highs. A few things to note about field recordings for ambience. Always record more than you require I recorded just shy of an hour of the MKH416 and about 10 minutes of the hydrophone. You will hear planes before you see them (it could be that or the fact I was trying not to get the gear wet). Pull yourself out of the sinking sand whilst the waves are crashing loudly this hides the sound of you. Don’t do an upper body workout the day before needing to hold a boom it will hurt more. And finally, take off your sneakers before recording, they will get wet and sandy. Other general notes are to make sure to check the F8 settings first before starting recording. I set one SD card to mon/stereo wav recording and one to polywav; both 48kHz, 24 bit depth. I also reset to factory settings before anything else in case someone change a setting to something I didn’t want.
I then took these files and set up a Pro Tools session in which I recorded into the other instruments. I set up a 3Dio as my main mic. I then tried the Neumann KM184, AKG C451b and the DPA 4011A. I preferred the sound of the KM184 for the spot mics and set up both to capture the left and right to reinforce the Himalayan bowls.
I also used this to record all of the other sounds of the keys and bells so that they can be moved later using HRTF plugins. This session took longer than I assumed it would as there was more Himalayan bowls than I was informed of making set up and packing down longer. This session still went smoothly as Although we didn’t get the VOX harmonies done, we did get all of the extra recordings done apart from the gongs which are planned for next week anyway. Seeing as now the other recordings are done it should still work with the schedule.
In other notes I have started work on audio for an animation for Ella Reid. I did contact someone else however, it was too late for the work she needed it for. Ella has an animation of two people dancing on a boat. She wrote up a document with all the elements she wanted and was open to ideas. When watching it I thought that ambience of water would help immerse the viewer into the animation. I also suggested a Pirate inspired Waltz as she wanted a pirate song. I sent her these ideas and my full portfolio (pointing out my previous work for a space animation and a fairy-tale game). I have started researching into Victorian Sea Folk songs aka. Sea Shanties. I also have found a book on Waltzes from the same time. I’m super excited for this as I have always enjoyed doing work that is slightly unusual and I’m glad that Ella has given me some freedom with ideas.
This next week will be busy with getting all of the audio for the music therapy edited and mixed slightly for next weeks recordings. I am also hoping to get most of the SFX/Foley done for Ella’s animation. I also will need to start the composition for it after I finish my research. Let’s hope we can keep up this workload whilst my almost non-existent social life disappears.
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