Steve's space

A regular event in the world of music making just happend, in the guise of WNAMM 2009. This is where hardware, instrument and software makers all show their new wares for the coming months. My particular interest being the software side of things.

I sat with anticipation waiting for it to come along, knowing there were going to be some exciting things happening, and particularly looking forward to the rumoured announcement of Cubase 5 (Cubase is the the DAW I use).

Well, I certainly wasn’t disappointed, and am still taking in a lot of the videos taken from the event previewing new stuff. So, did Cubase 5 appear? Oh yes, and cool it looks to – so cool in fact, that my order has already gone in, and I now sit patiently awaiting delivery towards the beginning of February! I am particularly looking forward to the new VST Expression feature, which makes writing orchestral music a lot easier.

That’s money well spent, but some free updates are coming my way too, courtesy of Spectrasonics, who don’t half give you value for your money. Stylus RMX 1.7 is coming soon, adding some nifty new features such as groove lock, and simplifying of beats. RMX is a truly marvellous and useful instrument as it is, and this update just adds more marvel – and for free!

An update for Omnisphere from the same guys is also coming, offering a further 2000 presets on top of the 2000 already there. This is a fairly new Synth, that I haven’t explored fully yet, but it sounds great, and I suspect you’ll be hearing it in some forthcoming Audio’s – particularly “Enemy of the Daleks” I shouldn’t doubt.

A long awaited update to a Play version of East West’s Symphonic Choirs is on the horizon, and hopefully as an upgrade it will be a reasonable price.

The final bit that interests me is also from East West, in the form of SD” Pro Upgrade, which expands the already excellent SD2. Money again though, calling out to be spent!

So, as I say in the title, I do feel like a kid in a Sweet Shop, and can’t wait to peel the wrappers and play with the new toys when they arrive.

Lovely :-)

Steve.

8:37 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Music

August 15

Sound Design Process (reprinted)

A while back on my previous blog I published this, and really wanted it on my new one, so here's some idea of how I personally go about working on an Audio:

1.	Read the script, and at the same time note down all of the Sound Effects needed on my nicely prepared SFX Sheets
2.	Receive the Discs & Marked up script from the Studio (i.e. it has the times of recording on)
3.	Go through the script noting the recorded project time for each Scene, once again on lovely prepared sheets
4.	I then do various things with this info, including sorting the order by the recorded project time and deciding which groups of scenes I will put in each Cubase project. This all helps speed up the dialogue & fx editing later
5.	Dialogue edit - go through all recorded material cutting out bits and dropping in re-takes as necessary.
6.	Produce a trailer.
7.	Get together all the sound effects needed. I may do this earlier, depending on when the play is recorded and I receive the discs. I like to do this, as it makes it so much more straight forward when editing.
8.	FX Edit - Basically putting together all the dialogue edits with the sound effects, adding the room reverb, stereo positioning etc. This is the lengthiest process of all, and of course the most demanding.
9.	Add the music - Once the FX edits have been signed off by the director, I’ll move on to writing the music. After having a play around with different sounds to see what fits (for which I get a good idea when doing the FX edit), I will just go through from beginning to end adding whatever sounds good and right. I’m not one for writing things before hand around a theme.
10.	CD Mastering - Once it’s all signed off and everyone is happy, there’s just the CD mastering to do, which involves marking up the track points, making sure levels are all OK and burning to a disc.
11.	…and finally, I’ll give it a listen to make sure there are no glitches on the discs, and this is in fact the first time I will hear the whole thing all the way through non-stop!

7:48 AM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Sound Design

August 09

Welcome to 'Space'

So, I think I decided to camp here for a while with my blog to see if I'll update more often! Plus you can have piccies, music and suchlike. So, here we go with the first post, and not a lot to say. I'm busily working on 'Brotherhood of the Daleks', currently getting together all the sound fx for it after completing the Dialogue edit. There's roughly 100 to sort out, which is actually quite a small amount compared to normal. I like to sneek peeks at the Cricket as well, but unfortunately it's raining! Mmm, and nice break to eat my Daughter's sweets that she picked up from a party, but she isn't allowed sweets, so Daddy gets them - mmm nice Open-mouthed

. Cheers.

3:36 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | General

My Music

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My Words of Wisdom

Like a Kid in a Sweet Shop!

Sound Design Process (reprinted)

Welcome to 'Space'

My Piccies

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Steve Foxon