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Jonny Pipe Audio
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Audio Post April Update

Over the last couple of months I've worked on some really great video projects, one of the highlights being creating the sounds of a yeti ferociously devouring an old lady!  That was fun!  

Here's a more recent project I mixed for Simon Waterhouse.  It's a video for Ground Effect clothing who organised a team of volunteer workers to build the 'missing link' mountain bike track near Castle Hill in the Southern Alps.  Simon went along and beautifully documented the project, and then the riding of the new track.  Gotta say he did a fantastic job, as you can see in the video, and this just inspired me all the more to do a great job with  the mix.

Mix Notes:

First job was to get all the dialogue cleaned up, compressed and EQ'd so that we had a nice even volume and tone across the whole video.  Once again, Simon did a great job recording too - all the dialogue nicely captured on lapel mics - so that made my job a bit easier.

Next I added atmospheres to the backgrounds, including rivers, hillsides, and bush scenes.

Then the bike scenes!  Only a couple of the mountain bike shots actually had bike sounds, so every bike sound you hear was placed in time and adjusted so it looks and sounds real.  Simon had recorded various stereo bike sounds, which I went through, labelled and categorised so that I could drop in the appropriate sounds when needed.  Of course, a lot of them needed to be edited, time stretched and beefed up to work well.

I wanted to emphasise some of the great slow motion shots, so created different sound design elements to enhance the speed, grit and power of the bike movement.  Here are just a couple of examples of things I did:

The roaring wind blow effect that follows the bike in it's dust cloud.

This was created with two different wind noises.  One was a classic whispy polar kind of wind, and the other was a low frequency rumble noise. By simply automating the volume to swell at the right point it gave the impression of a gust of wind.  I also distorted the higher wind noise a little to give it a bit more grit.

Flying gravel shots.

Some of the shots such as the one below showed gravel being thrown out by the bike's tyres, but the bike recordings I had just didn't quite have the close up gravelly sound I needed.  So I had to create it.  The image below shows the 3 tracks I used - the bike recording in blue, then the 2 effects above it. First a nice 'whoosh' effect gave the shot more movement, but I was still missing the gravel.  I had to think outside the square because I didn't have any 'mountain bike throwing gravel' effects!  

My solution was to take a 'leather shoes on gravel' footstep effect and with a bit of editing and time stretching I made it long enough to give me the gravel I needed to add to the other effects.  I also used this effect on some of the other close up gravelly shots.  Worked out pretty good in the end!

Graphics.

I also added sound design to all the graphics, by making a really close recording of a pencil scribbling on paper.  This was quite heavily compressed, noise reduced and the distorted to give the effect you hear on the video.

Lots of fun and opportunity to be creative on this project, and I've only touched on some of the things I did to enhance the sound, and in turn, over all impact of the video.  Thanks again to Simon Waterhouse from Resonate, check out more of his work over at his company's website!

categories: Audio Post, Sound Design, Action Sports
Sunday 04.07.13
Posted by Jonny Pipe
 

A Flat City to play on Radio New Zealand National

I recently received news that Radio NZ National is going to be playing selected episodes of 'A Flat City', a radio documentary I produced and mixed for RDU98.5FM.

A lot of effort was put into these docos, not only from my end, listening through hours of material and editing a cohesive story, but also from the team at RDU who relentlessly missioned around the city interviewing everyone!  So a big high five to all the team who worked on this.

As yet I'm unsure of the times or dates they'll play on air, but all the episodes can also be listened to at RDU's Mixcloud page HERE. (They're on page 5 and 6... you'll have to skip to them)

To find out a bit more about A Flat City, check out my news entry up the page a bit...

categories: Radio Documentaries
Monday 01.28.13
Posted by Jonny Pipe
 

Superfood – Light It Up

I've recently been working with a fine bunch of musicians called SuperFood. The basic tracks are all recorded by Jules Marchent who does all the programming and trumpet goodness, then he simply brings in his Pro Tools file and we record and produce the vocals and do the final mix here at The Garage.

The way the project has come together I think reflects how the role of the recording studio has changed in modern times, from a one stop shop for all your recording needs, to a place you can work with collaboratively - using the studio for it's expertise in certain areas and doing what you are confident doing yourself at home on your own Pro Tools set up.

SuperFood have been gigging their asses off getting some great reviews and recently played to a full and bouncing dancefloor at Dux Live.  

Tuesday 01.22.13
Posted by Jonny Pipe
 

Big Amps Heavy Guitars

I recently had the chance to test out the soundproofing ability of the studio while recording some rhythm guitar tracks with Ross Greig.  We're working on a 4 track EP project at the moment full of big heavy drums and guitars.  All the drum tracks were recorded through Kevin's API 1608 down at Angels Gate Studio so they're sounding big and punchy, while the rest of the overdubbing we're doing here at The Garage.

Ross was able to jack up a couple of nice amps that really suited the style of guitars we wanted through a friend of his Mark Hunter.  Mark plays guitar in a band called Setting Fire To Stacey and happens to be a very handy guy to have around when you are looking for the right guitar tone.

The amp which really shone through on the day was the Peavey 5150.  This amp is renowned for being ideal for rock, hardcore and metal guitar tones, and it certainly delivered the goods.  This was through a Mesa quad cabinet.

View fullsize ContentImage-5667-166811-AmpRoom.jpg
View fullsize ContentImage-5667-166855-5150.jpg
View fullsize ContentImage-5667-166859-MesaCab.jpg

The other head you can see in the picture is a Line6 DT50, which also sounded great, and offers a very diverse range of sounds.  Line6 is known for it's amp modelling, and this amp models different sounds on the front end, but then the signal runs through all tube circuitry for the rest of the amp, and also lets you switch between a number of true analogue cicuits.  It's basically the best of about 4 different worlds in one amp.  Pretty nice.

The pleasing thing for me, apart from the good tones we captured, was that we were able to really get these amps nice and LOUD just a few feet away from the control room with no real sound control issues.  Also, outside the studio you could hardly hear it at all.  Makes me feel good about all the time, effort and money spent on the soundproofing!

As far as recording technique goes - well it's pretty simple.  SM57 through the Warm Audio WA12 with the Tone button engaged.  Easy.  I've tried a lot of different mics and techniques on guitar amps, but it's hard to beat a 57 or 58 right on the cabinet (usually just off centre to the middle of the driver.  That's a good starting point anyway).

So with all the rhythm guitar tracks recorded, next we'll be doing lead guitars and then vocals.  But with xmas rapidly approaching that won't be until the new year, so stay tuned for some mixes late Jan/Feb.

Monday 12.10.12
Posted by Jonny Pipe
 

Music Is Sport - That’s a wrap!

I've just finished mixing the last episode of RDU's radio documentary series, 'Music Is Sport'.

I know that I've already written about this in my blog, but hey, it a celebration that it's finished, and I'm very proud of the result.  It's a 12 part documentary series that tries to work out why musicians REALLY do what they do!  Witty and slightly subversive, the episodes take a tounge in cheek scientific approach.

Conceived and Produced by the effervescent Spanky Moore!

If you missed them when they played on air you can head on over to the mixcloud page by following this link...

MUSIC IS SPORT MIXCLOUD PAGE!

categories: Radio Documentaries
Thursday 10.25.12
Posted by Jonny Pipe
 

The Garage Audio - Open for business!

The Garage.

The Garage.

I'm super pleased to announce that now, after months of hard work, my studio is ready to go. It's been a long road for me, to finally get to this point of having my own business to operate from.  I've worked with a lot of people over the past 5 years or so, and without their support I wouldn't have been able to get this far.  So thanks y'all - you know who you are...Geeze... I told myself I wasn't going to get emotional...

Anyway, all the demolishing, building, insulating, gibbing, plastering, painting and acoustic treating has come together and The Garage Audio is now good to go.  I'll be catering to mainly commercial production, voiceover recording and audio post production, but I'm also dead keen to keep recording, mixing and producing music.

Why The Garage? Well I'm a fan of the 'call it what it is' buzz, and guess what?  It's in my garage.  A pretty new garage though I might add.  The initial space was a sleepout, complete with bathroom and toilet facilities, so it only took a little restructuring to get it the way I wanted.

Being in a suburban location, soundproofing was always going to be essential (neighbourhood dogs and lawnmowers...)  so I really put a lot of effort into finding the best way to keep any noise out.  Using a combination of Silencer batts, Gib Rail (resilient rail), 2 layers of 13 mm noiseline Gib, sound stop acoustic sealant and laminated double glazing for any glass, it's worked very well, creating a quiet oasis in sunny Spreydon :-)

If you are interested in coming to check it out or you'd like to talk about a project, please drop me an email or give me a call.  I'd love to help.

categories: Studio Build
Thursday 10.18.12
Posted by Jonny Pipe
 
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