we listen
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When astronauts first walked on the moon, everyone was glued to the television. I was eight-years-old and can remember it like yesterday.
Beep. Beep.
We copy you down, Eagle.
Beep. Beep.
Engine arm is off. (Pause) Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.
Beep. Beep.
What the beep? All those old NASA transmissions seem to have that beeping in the recording. What the beep is it? It's actually two, and they're called Quindar tones.
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There was a recent AES (Audio Engineering Society) presentation at McGill University in West Montreal, Quebec titled "We Are the Robots: Developing the Automatic Sound Engineer." Brecht De Man from the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London discussed the state of automatic mixing. I don't know whether to be happy some automation is on the way, or be alarmed that I may become obsolete.
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.
Beg your pardon, Mr. Poe, but I have volumes of lore I wish were forgotten. We all have horror stories, like certain "client" experiences, but most we bring on ourselves.
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A new business feature recorded at Dynamix starts today with Herald-Leader and WEKU-FM. Tom Martin interviews local business and community leaders. Read - and listen - to the first one. Attorney Richard Hopgood with the office of Wyat, Tarrant, & Combs discusses the boost to commercial real estate market.
Read the article on the Herald-Leader’s web site.
Read about Tom Martin on WEKU-FM’s web site.
(Photo by Charles Bertram, Copyright Lexington Herald-Leader 2013)
In this months news, one of the most important aspects of being an audio engineer is to listen. Not only to sound, but to our clients.
Plus, find out how a microphone can pick up in one direction when it really is an all-direction device. KET will broadcast our self-produced documentary “The Beat of a Different Drummer” this month. And find out who’s been to Dynamix for a great soundtrack.
Read the newsletter here.
Whenever I start a new project, I always ask "who's the audience?" Each audience can be distinctly different, like high school students, retired people, doctors, primary voters, car buyers, etc. It can also be a less targeted audience, such as adults 18-65, Fayette County taxpayers, or any listener. These are the tough ones to tailor a product to.
Read more here.
Think back to the year 2005. Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Gasoline prices skyrocketed from $1.78 a gallon to over $3.00. "Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith" is released in theaters. Lance Armstrong won his 7th Tour De France. Snoop Dogg coined the word bizznizzle. And podcasts took off when Apple integrated them into iTunes.
Read more here.
The documentary produced by Dynamix Productions, "The Beat of a Different Drummer: The Story of America's Last All-Female Military Band," has been selected for broadcast on the KET Network this fall. It has also been selected for national distribution among 95 public television stations and networks through the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA). It will be available to those affiliates in time for Veteran's Day in November. Check your local listings.
With more detail than the broadcast version, plus DVD extras, the full length version is now on sale in our online store. Find out more here.
Most of you reading this know us at Dynamix for creating new sounds with new technology. But did you know we also like to resurrect old sounds? Just twenty years ago, magnetic tapes and records were standard formats we worked with everyday. Now, they're just "antiques" and items taking up space in a closet. But many people are discovering (or re-discovering) analog, and they want it in digital form.
Read more by clicking this link.
The Southern Cross: The Story of the Confederacy’s First Battleflag, has been completed. The fifty-six minute production chronicles the history of the design and creation of a flag that became the prototype for all of the St. Andrews Cross battle flags carried by Confederate armed forces. The hand-stitched silk flag with gold painted stars was borne by the Fifth Company of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans through the Battles of Shiloh and Perryville.
The soundtrack was delivered in 5.1 surround, an option many filmmakers desire to make their program stand out. The battle scenes in Southern Cross afforded many opportunities for cannon shells to fly overhead, bullets to wiz by, and soldiers to charge through the battlefield.
Find out more about the documentary from Witnessing History here.
I was recently explaining to our intern about how we used to synchronize sound and film together when I realized how many industry terms are borrowed from other tasks or re-hashed from another era. Most make sense, like "copy," "paste," and "edit." But with others you have to make an association. For instance, when you edit film, and I'm talking honest-to-goodness cellulose, you might cut out a bit of a scene to use later. You would hang each piece of film, or "clip," with an actual clip over a rolling cloth bin (like a laundry bin).
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We've been doing a lot of location audio in the last couple of months. Most of you already know that using a dedicated location audio engineer for video shoots is the best way to get quality audio. That's because it's not easy. We often say getting good location sound is like herding cats, or is an "impossible dream." We're often faced with impossible odds at getting good sound. So house lights down, single spot on stage center. It's not Shakespeare, it's definitely not Arthur Miller. It's not even as good as listening to Charlie Brown's teacher reading the phone book aloud, but enjoy.
Read more by clicking this link.
The quest to create a 3D visual experience has revved up, sputtered, and stalled for almost a century. But the journey for a 3D experience in sound has steadily evolved for more than eight decades. Find out its history and how you can make an informed decision about whether your next project should be in surround.
Read more by clicking this link.
The First Decade
February is a momentous month for Dynamix Productions - it's our tenth anniversary!
The picture above is what greeted me the first week of being out on my own. The Great Ice Storm of 2003. 65,000 people were without power in Lexington, including yours truly - and our new business site.
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The ball at Times Square has dropped again, the old man is gone, and the new year's baby is here. It reminds me that two years ago, in January of 2011, we were putting the final touches on our new baby. The walls were up, the spackle and paint were being brushed on, the lights were being wired, and the floors were being installed.
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