These are some sounds I whipped together after hearing the name "Grimlock" and remembering my short toy affair with the Dinobots, the Insecticons, and other organically robotic/robotically organic characters from my childhood.
<span>Transforms by Phonetical</span>
Found a sound designer/editor on Twitter who was seriously thinking about making a move from ProTools to Nuendo, but needed to know some of the pros and cons of Nuendo before making that decision. I contacted him and sent him an email to give him some ups and downs, as I regularly use both platforms. Thought I'd share the email, as I feel it's a pretty fair and casual summing up of the Nuendo format in regards to how the workflow (for me, at least) sizes up to the industry monster that is Avid ProTools. I hope it gives anyone who hasn't used Nuendo a better idea of how we can change our workflows based on the tools we use:
I use both on a daily basis simply based on what I'm working on - been on PT for 11+ years and N5 for about 6 years. I think I'll end up telling you more about Nuendo because we're both pretty familiar with PT.
I find Nuendo a far more efficient platform for my film work, esp when it comes to any sort of editing. Tools sets seem more intuitive, much more like picture editing tools - no smart tool like in PT, but there's not really a need for one given the way N5 works, as the tools kind of reside on the regions and where you place your cursor. I'm no picture editor, but I work with a bunch of them and it's certainly easier for them to communicate to me in terms of Nuendo than PT.
There are the little things like being able to highlight a bunch of regions and process them simultaneously - fade ins/outs, clip gain, pitch, trimming. Most helpful on intensive DIA or FX editing for me. Additionally, the fade editor in N5 light years ahead of the fade editor in PT. Folder tracks - put tracks you don't need to see in separate folders by type (DIA, FX, ATMOS, FOL), open and close as needed. It is brilliant.
As far as media management, the "Pool" as it's titled in N5 is great. Audition the sounds easily, but also have format info (you can mix formats in N5 with no issues), metadata, timestamps all right there. Right clicking on the file gives you a bunch of options, nothing worth getting into here, but easy and efficient to say the least. FOLDERS IN THE POOL (region bin) OH MY GOD WHY WON'T AVID DO THIS? Again, organize your sounds by type, format, whatever you want, open and close the folder to access. Better than scrolling around for 45 minutes trying to find that one breeze through the trees sound.
The one downfall of N5 in this realm is the handling of mono vs. stereo/multichannel files - this last version of N5 now allows you to take two mono tracks and combine to st/mutlichannel and vice versa. Before, you had no choice but to gang two tracks/channels together if you wanted to treat them as one. Kinda weird. But, it's still a bit easier to work with mono/stereo files, tracks and regions in PT.
Routing, bussing, etc. is a bit strange to get used to if you're a longtime PT user. Once I figured it out, it's cake. In fact, the new weird bussing page in PT9 is very much like the bussing page in N5. I've been finding that there's many new features in PT9 that seem to have been lifted from N5. Love the mixer in N5 - seems like more resolution in fader throws. Nice eqs on every channel - no lie, they are good sounding eqs - so no using up an insert for an eq, although with 10 inserts in PT I don't know that it matters. If you work in the box, the control room section is PHENOMENAL - check 7.1/5.1 crushed down to stereo with no plugins, cue sends that you can monitor on the fly, etc. Well thought out CR section - I used to use it, but now I have external monitoring control, you can just disable the CR in N5.
The obvious - use whatever I/Os you like with N5. Know you can do that in PT, but it's been this way with Nuendo for years now. I run a Native Mac system - 8 core, going to move up to the Octo with hyperthreading to see how it goes. There's more, but to be fair...
My TDM system has much more horsepower. Inherent delay in HP sends in PT - certainly can work around it, but you have to tweak your proprietary I/O application to splits and send signal back out to HP before hitting the disk. Kind of a PITA. I use an Apogee with the Maestro software, and although I can get it to work, I'm not totally comfortable running a large ADR/VO session with N5. That is, however, only because my N5 system is Native. Mixing feels a little better in PT to me, but I've tried to keep most of my mix work in PT to make it easy to collaborate with others. I've mixed plenty in N5, but some 5.1 sessions can get a little laggy. Add onboard vid playback of ProRes HQ or Proxy files and sometimes I have some problems. There are certainly workarounds for that.
That being said - a few more pros of N5:
Faster than realtime mixdowns;
Bussing correctly allows you to export stems and final mix simultaneously at or faster than realtime;
Despite Avid now owning Euphonix, EuCon is far more deep in N5/Logic/Pyramix than it is now or will be in the near future in PT;
Here's one for the sound editors - MULTIPLE SESSIONS OPEN SIMULTANEOUSLY, lovely;
Another one - DRAG/DROP BETWEEN MULTIPLE OPEN SESSIONS - great for ATMOS, etc. when you have scenes that your actors return to.
I regularly use VST plugs (cheaper than TDM!) from Waves, AudioEase, Native Instruments, Izotope and have no problems.
I'm no Steinberg employee, but I play one on TV. For real, though, I'm an advocate of using the right tool for the right job. For me, sometimes it's PT, sometimes it's N5. Either way, I think it's best that the men and women in our profession learn as many tools as possible to be as flexible as possible. Feel free to email me or call me with any other questions.
In 2008 I was fortunate enough to work with director/writer Paul Creager and writer Jessica Mason Pieklo (@Hegemommy) as a sound designer on "Resonance: The Odyssey of The Bells", a film that followed the path of centuries old Japanese Ceremonial Bells that had survived Japan's scrap metal drives of WWII. The bells that did survive the scrap drives were taken home as war trophies by the US military. Some of the bells had survived long enough to be identified and returned to their homeland. One of the bells ended up in Duluth, MN. In 1951, a group visiting from Japan identified the bell as originating in the city of Ohara, Japan, but was originally thought to have been melted during the war. The bell was returned, and in Japan a new bell was cast in the old tradition and given to the people of Duluth to celebrate the connection of the two communities through the original Ohara bell. Naturally, I saw this project as a fantastic opportunity to record what had to be the most massive iron bell I have ever seen in my life. When struck, the bell vibrated for what seemed to be hours, with wonderfully repetitive resonant cycles. Each strike offers differing sonic textures. Unfortunately, it is a city park. And people like city parks. Kids play games in city parks. Sprinklers. You know where it's going. But still, a nice sonic representation to give you a sense of the size and the density of this bell.A pleasant surprise was the sounds that the bell made without any striking. There was a pretty strong wind coming off of Superior that day, and as it whipped around the bell's insides, it created an amazingly complex drone. I edited together various recordings of the bell + wind interaction to create a longer version.
I've found that the work I do for medical device companies, of which there are plenty here in the upper midwest, is some of the most experimental, eccentric, playful and enjoyable sound design I've created.
This is an example of some of the sound design work I've created for St. Jude Medical. The project was produced by Phil Hoch at Modern Climate, Minneapolis. Visuals created at Splice, MPLS.
Sound elements consist of various operating room tools and devices chopped up, distorted, and filtered to all holy hell.
Gracefully dramatic visuals paired together with a sexy soundtrack to pitch products that, to most, are neither graceful nor sexy.
A success in my book.
Back in September, I was browsing blogs and stumbled upon The Den of Geek. Not totally my cup of tea, but this article was fascinating, all about the design of sci fi movie corridors. I forgot how much I loved the production design of science fiction corridors. More accurately, I remembered that I wasn't sure what it was about sci fi movies like Alien, 2001 and Pandorum and series like BSG that I loved so much. Fracking corridors. Shoulda known.
