Musical Sound Booths

Yesterday I left the house armed with a ziplock full of screws, clips, clasping rings, clothes pins, and other hardware to hang a moving blanket in the sound booth. 

After a stop at U-Haul, I'm ready to hit the sixth floor of the university library sound booth to string up a MacGiver invention to optimize the sound. 

So using a series of rope, rings, clips, clamps and blanket, I'm all set. It only took a half hour to figure it out. I'm really pumped about recording some quality audio!

[LIBRARY LOUD SPEAKER: May I have your attention please. The library is closing in 15 minutes. Please make your final selections and exit the building.]

W H A T  ? ! ?

But--but, I just created the perfect recording environment. There is no way I'm coming back tomorrow. I've been waiting all day to record. I'll just secretly stay here until I'm done. Wait--security guards? Since when? Why are there security guards walking around? Dang it. 

"You packing up?" asked one of them?

"Of course. It's a shame I just got here. Been waiting to record all day. Wife just got home to watch the boys." I said, disappointed.

"Why not go to the old union building? That's where the GLT studios are located. There are sound booths on the second floor. They don't close for another three hours.

"Did you say BOOTHS?  Nice!  I'm out of here after I tear down."

So I headed to old union and discovered a row of music room sound booths, many of them with pianos in them. Some of the piano rooms had dedicated Chinese girls practicing in them. (Remember it's a Saturday night--the library closes early because only the most diligent are still studying).

I tried one of the ten rooms but it was locked. I asked one girl how to get in. She said you just get a key at the beginning of music semester. I asked how else can I get in. She said cheerfully, "I can unlock a room for you."

Once in the room and sound tight door shut, I was wondering if my voiceover would be inflicted with an uninvited low volume Chinese piano track. It was then I noticed something catastrophic. A low frequency roar from building systems ventilation, no problem for piano practice,  but would make absolute silent recording impossible. Yes the roar could be filtered out, but I'm not sure how. I don't have time for this. 

I politely explained to the Chinese girls that I couldn't stay because of the noise. They said, there is one more group of sound rooms in a building across the quad at the castle. I wondered if it would be roar-free. 

So I walked across the quad with my equipment--by now it's dark out. This time the booths are spread out into this cozy labyrinth of hallways in a white brick painted environment. Really interesting. 

The first room I tried was half full with an orchestra-sized xylophone that I immediately started playing with my fingers. "I love this!" Then I shut the door and tested the acoustics with my voice. The bass in my voice was causing the xylophone to resonate. The whole room became a reverb chamber. NEXT ROOM. 

I tried about ten rooms until I found one that was acceptable. If you call hearing feint sounds of a clarinet relentlessly playing scales, acceptable. 

So I made the room ready in about 30 minutes. Now I'm all set. 

I decided to do a record "silence" test to check the sensitivity of the mic. 

It seemed like it wasn't picking up the clarinet. Let's check the recording with headphones. 

WHERE. ARE. MY. HEADPHONES ?!?

And then I got a vision of where I left my headphones. IN MY LIVINGROOM. 

OK, no sound check. Just do it. Full steam ahead. 

Sound booth: a new approach

Some audio professional friends of mine had an opinion on the garbage voice overs i had produced so far.

First off, the previous voiceovers were successful practice reads but still lacked energy -- I recorded them at 10 pm and I was wearing down. And although I'm able to employ the mechanics and workflow of the recording and editing process in Adobe Audition, still, technique and filtering, up to this point, had been completely absent. 

Of course I had a million questions about what the million buttons do in Audition. I'm seeing lots of filters. Surely I need to use them. So my question is, what are the few essential filters all pros run on nearly every sound file they process? Let's go ask Tom the pro. Tom has built his own sound studio in his home. He's got to have a good approach. 

TOM'S ADVICE

1. High pass filter - generally speaking, this eliminates hum -- all frequencies below 120 Hz, (These first three steps are accomplished at the same time within an Audition dialog box.)

2. Low pass filter - generally speaking, this eliminates hiss -- all frequencies above 5,000 Hz

3. Boost bass vocal qualities to add richness by boosting the sound curve in the midrange area. Audition gives you  control over the width of that midrange focus area. 

4. Compression filter - this essentially increases volume in the low volume areas of the voice and decreases high volume areas to give a more consistent overall voice volume. This is NOT the same as an EQ adjustment where you boost midrange. 

What's sound advice without a little variation? Glenn the Pro has been a sound guy for a thousand years. How does he do it?

GLENN'S ADVICE

1. High pass filter

2. Normalize filter -

3. EQ adjustment 

4. Other filters depending on the condition of the audio. 

I let Glenn listen to an excerpt of my  recording. He asked me why I was hand holding the mic--he could hear it when I turned off the music bed layer. He said as he looked at me, "what is that? Is that a hand on the mic?" 

I'm like, "well, uh I don't have a mic stand yet."

He said, "pawn shop, $10."

Another thing that could improve the acoustics is a U-Haul moving blanket draped behind the microphone. It could eliminate echo and improve acoustics. 

Voice over recording

SHEN YUN

I arrived about 3:45 pm at the ISU Bone Student Center parking lot, not far from the library. I noticed the parking lot was full of cars so I had to park three blocks away and walk. 

THE TICKET

As I walked past a woman getting into her car, I paused and asked her what was the big event this evening. She said Shen Yun Performing Arts are here from China. She had to leave at halftime and wanted me to have her $50 admission ticket for the second half. I accepted and stayed for three delightful scenes, then handed off the ticket to a curious ISU student to enjoy the remainder of the show. 

THE SOUND BOOTH

I finally arrived at the library about 4:30 ready to go with audio production on the sixth floor in the sound booth. 

THE VO

The text for the VoiceOver (VO) for our 90 second trailer / intro was inspired by an interview with Dave, but written by a third party. Though it's Dave's story, we are realizing the writing is not Dave's nor ours, and it doesn't entirely fit our purpose. I felt like a rewrite was important before I could voice it. But the team was pretty much in love with the existing text. 

So we have gone from VO2 - 60 seconds (the original copy) to VO3 -  75 seconds (that I've written), to VO2 Edit, which another team member edited but it's not significantly different from the original. I'm not sure what happened to VO1. Did it ever exist?

The trouble with the VOs above is that they are too short. We really need a 90 second piece. So while I was supposed to be recording the VO, I was writing instead. Well congratulations. A full 90 second VO4 was born. But taking a second look at it the next day would reveal work still needed to be done. 

THE WRITING

Wow--writing about writing is so boring. So why would I even bother? 

I'm now ready to print the VO scripts, but I learned printing is complicated at the library when you're not a student. I am alum however and felt right at home. 

1000 PRINTING STEPS

1. Try to print wirelessly from my laptop but can't figure it out. 

2. Pack up gear and head to lobby floor to get answers. 

3. Get sheet to help me download printing software from librarian but it can't be done. 

4. Get login card to sign in as guest after emailing myself the VO Scripts. 

5. Print email to librarian's printer. 

6. Have librarian pay for my copies because all I have is a checkcard that won't work with...

7. The print card machine where you pay a dollar for a reloadable card. 

8. Get VO2 and VO3 printouts and breath mark them for breathing pauses. 

9. Go upstairs to sound booth and practice read. 

10. Oh dang, these really are too short. 

11. Write VO4. 

12. Repeat steps 1 - 9 above. 

13. Practice read them about five times. 

14. Record 15 takes of both VO2 and VO 4. 

15. Import them from iPhone iRig app into my MacBook Pro and transfer them to the shared team DropBox folder. (When you sign up and give them my name, we both get more FREE disk space).

Listening to the sound files the following day my partner and I both think it's a bit lack luster and the writing is not great (though I think there is evidence on this page that I'm a decent writer).

My conclusion is to collaborate. Brainstorm a list of things we want in the script. Put the list in good order. Re-voice it. 

Frames, disc space, and Video editors

Day whatever...

FRAMES PER SECOND

So I am understanding the best way to shoot for TV Broadcast. Either 24 frames per second (fps) for a cinematic look, or 30 fps for another type of look. 

OUT OF DISC SPACE

It's been some time since I've updated my hard drives. The truth is, all my five or six hard drives are 98% filled with graphic design and photo files--I shoot from 1 to 100 photos per day (doesn't everyone?) and have been managing a massive 30,000+ image photo library with aperture. So now it's time to slow down on the photos and dust off the video skills. And it's time to bust out a new 4 Terabyte hard drive--thanks to my partner, it arrives Tuesday. The drive was just delivered to my house Friday, but Amazon vendors shipped a tiny two terabyte drive by mistake. So they fixed the order the same day and promised overnight service to Illinois, but it shipped to Leroy's house in Maryland. What fun. 

AFTER EFFECTS

OK, I've finally ramped up After Effects learning, for animating video graphics and titling. Not as tough as I thought, there's just a lot going on with an app that is far more complex than Photoshop. The other complicated thing I'm trying to keep straight about After Effects is it's spelling. I would hate to spell After Affects (sic) wrong in a blog about how we are gearing up for a pro shoot, even if it were a pro-sumer shoot. 

VIDEO EDITORS

My intense AVID Media Composer training, compliments of the Defense Department, won't last forever. Especially since I don't use it daily. But shortly after that training, I quickly attended a couple other editor trainings, including Premiere, and iMovie HD (wow that is really a unique experience, although I really loved editing with it--but man it's different than what the industry is used to--Apple has already started a video editing revolution--the competitors just don't realize it). 

With all the YouTubing out there, the world has to edit video with something other than pro software or Google's YouTube editing tools (LORD bless them). When iMovie catches on, the industry will notice 50,000,000 million consumer users, proficient with its new feel, and then the industry will feel old and out of touch. 

Let's get started

Day Two

OK, so we have the talent to do this, but our equipment is on the light side. Where shall we start? 

We'll first of all, what are we making? According to LeRoy, we're making an INTRO for the reality show, to pitch to network television, or even an internet streaming company. 

After much discussion I've learned that an INTRO is the clip at the beginning of a show where you hear the Gillian's Island music, see the boat rolling on the waves, later sitting on the beach with a hole in the side. It's basically a narrative of what the show is about that drums up excitement to start watching the show. 

Most intros range from 30 to 60 seconds--but because we are trying to sell the idea, this maybe more like a 90 second to 3:00 minute trailer. 

OK, let's determine a core list of equipment that we can't do without. We need two cameras, a boom / mic, tripods, and lighting. 

7 hours later...

After discussing with several video professionals I have determined its impossible. 

Kidding. 

I now know that I want to shoot with a combination of a DSLR camera ($2000) and a GoPro Hero ($500), boom and mic ($2000), a fluid tripod ($500), Lowel light kit ($1000). 

$6000. Oh man. 

OK let's rethink this. What equipment do I have? Sony DV cam ($800) and iPhone HD cam ($400), iRig mic ($100), MacBook Pro for video and graphics production ($1500), three Reveal ® light bulbs with shiney clip-on construction bowls ($25), and...

...my new pair of rare Sony black and white headphones ($80 imported from the Far East).

$2900 but we'll pay dearly for quality. 

I have to keep in mind that THIS is not an HD shoot. We are just trying to get a clip to evaluate, and if it ends up high enough quality to pitch, then we're there. 

The birthday voice mail

Day One 

iPhone
March 30, 2014 at 7:45 AM from LeRoy to Sam.

"Hey good morning.
First, happy birthday, and then 
give me a call when you can.
i don't know what time you go to church.
i got a project i need your help with.
its big, and you're gonna be excited to hear what it is.
i'm going to send you some stuff
through email and i'll explain what it is
when you give me a call."

So I called LeRoy and he shared with me his unique idea for producing a reality show. I found the idea acceptable. It will be the first of its kind anywhere in the market.

The cool thing is we have a big connection who is happily on board--a friend of LeRoy of many years who ain't going anywhere--who has a significant collection with interesting clients with a world of stories of their own. This will affect a population of America. We will all definitely take notice when this show debuts.

LeRoy and I are senior graphic designers, raring to go with employable ideas. I also have Defense training for videography, editing, and broadcast writing, and i'm very excited to get engaged with this field. Since high school days, I have often thought about filmmaking. Now it's possible.

Our friendship is separated by 800 miles of America, between Central Illinois and Washington, D.C., so we are relying on electronic communication to make this work.