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Robert Wiley
Another day visiting my mentor - Mr Donnie Baker and things were popping off at his place.
One of the producers who rents a space/room had been called to do the opening score for the upcoming XMEN movie. So the whole time I was there you could hear him futzing with different elements - it sounded cool. A VO came in @ 2 and Donnie let me sit in on it. Donnie's right had man Jessie was at the controls and he made it look so easy - which he later told me it is. He made two tracks in ProTools and each time the guy started over he created another track by dragging down the finished one. At the end the talent had done like 4 versions even one in a British accent which sounded genuine to me. Client than instructed Jessie to send the compressed files to him and also burn a DVD which Jessie did quickly. I asked him if he ever put a reverb on the vocal and he said "no, somebody else will add an effect if the voice needs one." So that was done in about 45mins and then Donnie had a visit from the producer lady we got the rack system from, she came through with her people and one of her artist she manages who was Aaron Carter. He was checking things out, all the studios and the big one. He said he has a band and would like to come and lay some tracks down and, rent the studio out. Donnie said we can make this happen and just let him know.....
Also Donnie was telling me they did a spot on Pensado's Place which was shot at the NAMM convention this past weekend. One of the interns had the chance to introduce the show, and I heard that Jaime did a good job. Also Dave Pensado gave Donnie and ES Audio a shout out on the air ---free plugs are good.
So then we got into automation, Donnie said that everything can be automated except solo's. He went over the different types (touch, latch, write and read) and showed me examples of each which was helpful because that confused me on the test. Latch is when the automation stays at the level you adjust it to, where as touch returns to the original position. Donnie told me to play around with this in my mix, and just get familiar with it. Automation is used alot on films, its a source of sound designing in a way because you are adding the proper audio to what is being shown on screen. Donnie showed me how it would be done in 5.1 surround sound and drew a diagram to further illustrate it which was helpful.
Later o Donnie suggested I practice and I asked him if he had a crappy mic I could borrow and he said "sure" along with a cable. I will definitely check this out by he next time I see him.
Today was a full day....saw alot, and learned alot...next chapter in on sound reinforcement #18.
