Plant echolocatability as an evolutionarily-selectable trait

This article in the LA Times talks about how certain plant have leaves that have developed to allow bat to locate them faster using echolocation. It's the same idea as using bright colors or plumage... just with SOUND!

Neato.

(I am the batman.)

Sleeping Beauty Wakes at La Jolla Playhouse

This past month, I was the Assistant Sound Designer of Sleeping Beauty Wakes, a new rock musical at La Jolla Playhouse, a Tony-Award Winning Theater. While there I had the privilege of working with Tony-Nominated Sound Designer, Leon Rothenberg. The sound system featured equipment we use here at UCI; Meyer UPQs and UPJs for the Main Left and Right, Meyer M1Ds for a line array center cluster. There was also a full range delay system of UPJs and M1D-Subs. Front Fills were also M1Ds.

While being in residence at La Jolla Playhouse, I had the opportunity to run SIM3 for two days as Leon, Associate Sound Designer, Dave Corsello (UCSD Sound Design Graduate) and myself tuned the sound system. When the actors came onstage for soundcheck they noticed how great things sounded. The Musical Director James Sampliner (of Broadway's Wedding Singer and Legally Blonde) noticed how clean the sound was too.

The show runs through August 21st, I've included the website to check out videos and music from the production.

Sleeping Beauty Wakes, La Jolla Playhouse

New Freesound Recordings are up!

I finally finished the edit/upload/tag process for the recordings I made during my recent trip to Europe. There's not as much as I would have liked to post, but there's a bunch of unusual bits of Paris, Prague, and Rome for your enjoyment! Check it out here.

what's that ringing?

It's tough to fake a mobile phone on stage.

Well, I should say that it's easy to do a passable job, hard to do a great job.

In the old days of wired phones, there were some great options. Tele-Q boxes (a box that generates the right voltage to ring the phone - just plug the cable into the box and ring away!) worked well, as did specials/recordings and hiding bells in secret places. Even with cordless phones, there were plenty of ways to get a truly great effect - tele-q boxes (attached to the base station) and specials both worked well.

Mobile phones, on the other hand, are much trickier. The tele-q option doesn't work, because there is no base station. Hiding specials doesn't work very well either, because people carry their phones with them, making the sourcing very tough. A couple of recent productions I know of used an iphone app called Airfoil, which streams audio directly to your phone, but in my experiments with it, there's a variable lag of 1-3 seconds between when I tell the sound to play and when it actually plays. That lag is unacceptable in a theatre environment.

Plus, if you want get picky, the sound of a phone ringing varies dramatically as you pull the phone out of your pocket, purse, etc. That's a complex change that is tough to replicate.

So, sound designers have been poking around this issue for years, and each designer has a couple of solutions that work well enough for them. I tend to use specials, and if the situation exists, I'll build two rings, an in-pocket ring and an out-pocket ring. It's good, but not great.

But that may soon change. We may soon have something awesome that will change our lives! This part of our lives, anyhow... stay posted!

Dial up, slowed down

http://laughingsquid.com/modem-dial-up-sound-slowed-down-700-is-super-creepy/

For those of us who remember connecting to the net via dial up. Here is a tasty treat.

Progress in the new shops

Hi Folks,

Hope all your summers are going well. Just a quick blog post to update the progress that is going on here.

With the help of Stephen, Marshal, and 101 Rachael, we got the new workshop (3036) BLUE! It's very pretty! And getting real close to time to move the shop from the basement up to 3036.

We have also made some progress in the storage room (3026). The cable hook wall was installed last week.
Here is a picture of Joe pulling a "Palmer" trying to find the studs. Seems they aren't evenly spaced in that room.











The bottom row is up! Jeff collapses in the corner as Joe gets ready to hang the next one.












Jeff investigates the gizmos hiding above the drop ceiling. Oh, and look at that, the second row is up!












Here the third row is in! The wall is complete!




















The speaker rack is started! The wall anchors are in, the uprights are up! All that is left is to fill those last cheeseboro's with the last pipe.










The pipe is in! Jeff is checking that it's level, as Joe tightens the nuts.













And it's up! Jeff gives a last twist, as Joe checks out the handy work. Now, all we need to do is hang some speakers on it! It will be jam packed!

from Germany with Love!

Our Neumann M149 microphone arrived today! It is love (well, at least I am in love with it). It came on a very slow boat from Germany - 2 months in the waiting. Joy!!!

Speaker Shootout

We were very fortunate to have Scott Esterson (the Western Sales Manager for Genelec) bring down a set of Genelec 8250 and 8240 monitors for a demo. He was also very kind to let us do a critical listening shootout against our existing arsenal of near-fields.

The 8250s are tricked out! They come with self-analysis software and a measurement mic. Their system is much like like the JBL one but much better implemented and offering multiple bands of EQ.

How do they sound, you ask? Well... they have the classic Genelec sound profile - very pleasing top-end, really wide soundstage, and a clean low-mid range. Very nice monitors. The subwoofer offers some serious LF extension and couples about as well as I have ever heard (their control software phase-aligns the LF as well).

Who won the shootout? Lets just say that if I put that much DSP on the HD-1s that they would sound similar. Out of the box - and flat - well... that's not really fair for me to say! Go to your local dealer and listen for yourself ;)

Scott is a super nice guy, very generous with his time and truly believes in the product. Many thanks!

Congratulations to the UCI Sound Designers class of 2011!

Spelling Bee

Congratulations to Jeff Polunas (MFA-2) on his sound design for "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee". Jeff also received a positive mention in the Stage Scene LA review:

http://stagescenela.com/html/25th_annual_spelling_bee6.html

Hopefully Jeff will be willing to share his design here on the blog(?)...

An interesting question about Intellectual Property

Sound Designers have a very complex relationship with Intellectual Property (IP). On one hand, we're creators of IP. Our designs are (usually) our property, which we license to theatre companies for the runs of shows. We trust large parts of our IP (sound files we build, computer files we create, etc.) to business colleagues to use in ethical ways: in licensed productions only. We trust these companies and individuals not to steal or illegally use our work.

On the other hand, sound designers are also consumers of IP. We regularly use copyrighted music and sound effects in our designs, and when we do, we engage in a complex dance of ethical responsibility, legal responsibility, and creative accountability. How do you secure the right to use someone else's IP? Whose job is it to secure that right? What is a fair compensation for a specific piece of IP? How do I as a sound designer balance the needs of my client (a good design, on budget, on time), the needs of the owners of the IP I use (financial and/or psychological renumeration for the use of their IP), and my needs (a good level of efficiency, maintaining good personal and professional relationships, money in the bank, and work I can be proud of)?

Sound Designers have these conversations all the time. Different designers answer the question in different ways, but it's something we think about and talk about a lot.

Then, this morning, I read an interesting blog post, about a similar question from the photography world... what do you think?

The first wires have been run...

It is almost two years overdue - but the first of thousands of wires have been pulled in the Meyer Studio!

Margarita Monday Reunion

We have a long-standing tradition here called MMM (Margarita Mondays with Mike). The whole dept. (on a good Monday) or at least part of the sound area (typical) gets together for some food, drink and good cheer. This one, however, was special... the stars lined up and we had a reunion! All of the past and present grads showed up -- along with BC, Vinnie and I.

Here's a peek...

6:30PM - not yet completely out of control... the alums are on their best behavior (as seen by the birdies).

7:30PM - Cory, Joe and Palmer. Up until this moment, we really missed them. It's been much more quiet this year... hmmm.

8:30PM - Everyone except Mike.

10:00PM - Nevermind that the camera was leaning from being propped up on two chairs.... everybody was leaning a bit for other reasons

The new studio gear starts arriving...

The new studio equipment has started arriving! Here's the first two truckloads:

Todd and Jeff assembling the mixer stand. It's like Ikea that's too big to fit in a Volvo:

The finished mixer stand with the Avid console inside:

F*#@ng instruction manuals! ProTools consoles are just as hard to put together as the software is to use. The Yamaha is just being used as a table right now:

It's that time of the year again!

The sun is out, the winter blues are being taken over by plants trying to reproduce. And as such, cause humans to have allergies. Since we don't want to do away with the plants, I have added a new feature in the shop...


Meet TikiTom!

Here he is, keeping watch over the shop.

I know what you are thinking, BC, it's more Moai than Tiki! But hey, the box it came in said Tiki, so his name is Tiki Tom.