Gillian Reynolds Has written a lovely little review in The Daily Telegraph We’re half way through Tony Pitts’s blackly comic series, about a strange seaside place where odd people live. At three in the morning someone is screaming. It’s the kind of thing that happens in Shedtown down by the bay, where dogs arrive as parcels in the post. It’s a bit like Under Milk Wood with touches of Father Ted. And it’s curiously addictive, the vivid, dreamlike script given life by a marvellous cast, including Suranne Jones, Ronni Ancona and Johnny Vegas as Colin (a thoughtful melancholic). Tonight: a puppet show about 9/11. Wow, "a bit like Under Milk Wood" praise indeed. This episode certainly had some sound design challenges, not least creating the unwrapping of a dog sent through the post in a parcel!! And the night screams were fun to record on the beach, we certainly got some very strange looks from passers by. All great fun.
In preparing the previous post I have just noticed this offer, on the Waves Special Offers page, which with all the coverage on the HD Native card, including my own review in Sound on Sound, I thought it would be worth bringing it to your attention in case, like me, you had missed it. To take advantage of this special offer, registered Avid Pro Tools|HD Native users will need: 1. The Avid Pro Tools|HD Native registration confirmation (received when registering your Pro Tools|HD Native system.) 2. To download and complete the Waves order & authorization form. 3. Fax or email the two documents to +1-865-909-9212 or orders@waves.com. Your Waves Gold serial number will be sent to you by email.
Last night Radio 4 broadcast the 2nd episode of Shedtown, a 4 part comedy starring Johnny Vegas. "Foundations" written by Kevin Eldon in which, Colin (Johnny Vegas) is all at sea as the foundations of Jimmy's dream take shape on the beach. Wes and Father Michael witness the profits of some not-so-spiritual meat.
Read MoreMiranda Sawyer in The Observer at the weekend has reviewed Shedtown. She wrote... Shedtown, a new programme from Johnny Vegas's production company, was far from ranty: a strange drama/comedy/soundscape, narrated by Maxine Peake, it took advantage of its 11pm slot to offer something much more dreamy and hilarious than the usual wait-for-the-laughter Radio 4 fare. It's about the final works trip for the staff of a failed museum. They go to the seaside. The jokes came in under the radar: "What can I get you?" asked the barmaid. "Peace of mind," said Barry. "I want a pint, me," said Dave. The barmaid talked them through the new menu, which included chicken catch-a-Tory. I am proud that she used 'soundscape' in her description of Shedtown as I worked hard to provide an aural wash of sound to support the narrative. More about the next episode soon....
Our Mike Thornton writes the Pro Tools Notes, Techniques and Workshop articles for Sound on Sound as well as reviewing many of the new Pro Tools related products. Note that you will need to be a subscriber to view the recent articles or you can choose to Click & Buy individual ones. Synchronised Singing - Backing vocals sound better when they’re perfectly in time — and if yours aren’t, Pro Tools can help you fix them.
This has just popped up on the TC Electronic news feed. The features of the new LM5D version 2 are... LM5D is now compliant with ITU-R BS.1770-2, EBU R128 and ATSC A/85 Support for Pro Tools 9 (TDM version) You can download the new version for Mac OS X, Windows or Venue from the LM5D support page. There are also a couple of videos showing how the LM5D works....
I have to go back to early September where for nearly a week the cast and crew lived and worked in Robin Hood Bay recording Shedtown on location before the weather broke too much. Ha ha, the British weather kept us on our toes and made umpteen schedules out of date almost before they had come out of the printer. The view out to sea showing some of the bad weather coming in! The frst episode is called "Something is Gonna Change.... Who hasn't thought about running away from it all at some time or other? Throwing caution to the wind, wrenching oneself out of a long established orbit to head for the deep space of the unknown? Barry (Tony Pitts) and Jimmy (Kevin Eldon) haven't. Until now. Friends since school days in a small town, they find themselves slipping inexorably and almost unconsciously into middle age.
Read MoreReading the update pdf, there have been a load of small fixes cvered in this update. Here are the details of where to download everything. Pro Tools 9.0.3 Read Me These document important compatibility information, issues resolved in Pro Tools 9.0.3 (including issues resolved in 9.0.2 and 9.0.1), known issues, error codes, and corrections to the guides for Pro Tools 9.0.3 and Pro Tools HD 9.0.3 software: Pro Tools 9.0.3 Mac Read Me (PDF) [0.17 MB] Pro Tools 9.0.3 Windows Read Me (PDF) [0.19 MB] If you have already installed Pro Tools 9.0 on your system from the Pro Tools 9.0 installation DVD, or previously installed 9.0 or 9.0.1 from your Avid Account, you can download the Pro Tools 9.0.3 Updater for Mac or Windows: Download Pro Tools 9.0.3 Updaters and Read Me Documents
At last night’s Sony Radio Academy Awards, Mannmade Production’s drama serial “Divided We Fall” which was edited by Mike Thornton, and made for Preston FM won the Bronze Sony in the “Best Community Programming” category. It was the brainchild of Sohail Nawaz and his Northwest Muslim Community organisation, Shanbash. Sohail is always looking for new ways to convey the message that the majority of Muslims are peace-loving and law abiding citizens and he hit on the idea of a radio soap to illustrate the paths to extremism.
Read MoreOur Mike Thornton writes the Pro Tools Notes, Techniques and Workshop articles for Sound on Sound as well as reviewing many of the new Pro Tools related products. Note that you will need to be a subscriber to view the recent articles or you can choose to Click & Buy individual ones. Avid Pro Tools HD Native The idea of a ‘native’ Pro Tools HD might sound like an contradiction, but it offers the most affordable way of obtaining key HD features that are still not available elsewhere.
Our Mike Thornton writes the Pro Tools Notes, Techniques and Workshop articles for Sound on Sound as well as reviewing many of the new Pro Tools related products. Note that you will need to be a subscriber to view the recent articles or you can choose to Click & Buy individual ones. I/O Setup Window in Pro Tools 9 Behind the scenes in Pro Tools 9 there are some major changes to how the I/O Setup window works.
My friends at Sound on Sound have just released a video from NAB 2011 covering a new product from Rycote. They have taken their excellent shockmount design technology and designed a shockmount for handheld flash card recorders. Not only that but they have a bundle which includes the handle, shockmount and mini wind jammer. This is an excellent solution to the handling noise problems that comes with most integral handheld flashcard recorders. Rycote Dealer Another piece of good news is that we are now a Rycote dealer and so we can supply these or indeed any Rycote products. The price as mentioned in the video for the portable audio recorder kit is £99 including vat
Read MoreJust a quick reminder that the McDSP Storewide sale will be ending in 3 days! And if these super low prices aren't good enough already, if you make a minimum $100 purchase from now through April 30th we'll give you an additional $25 off! Just use coupon code NL25OFF.
If the previous post wetted your appetite for iZotope's RX2 restoration bundle then they are released some videos and a pdf help guide to steer you through how to get the best out of RX 2 Restoration Guide If you have RX and want to learn the basics of audio restoration, you're in luck. RX gives you the tools you need, and this guide will show you how to do it. Download the Restoration Guide Adobe Acrobat PDF format (8.5MB) Download the RX Guide Audio Examples wav files in a zip file (18MB) Videos Optimised Workflow Visual Editing Complete Set of tools Advanced Explained Update available iZotope have also released a new version of RX 2. which include VST 3 support, improved compatibility for certain hosts, workflow enhancements, and many other minor bug fixes and performance enhancements. Updates are always incorporated into the latest installer, so to update to the latest version, just download and re-install. It is not necessary to uninstall before installing, and it will not be necessary to reauthorize.
iZotope have published an article from Emmy Award-winning Recording Engineer and Sound Mixer Bill Jackson earning an Emmy Award for outstanding Sound Mixing on HBO's Entourage. Bill Jackson has been hard at work using RX to clean up Season 1 and 2 of HBO's Entourage. Jackson let us know how he cleaned and transformed the show's audio into a 5.1 mix, and we thought, “Why not share that with all of you?” Jackson explains using RX on dialogue and noise, and provides some useful tricks as well. I am very excited about what I can do with RX 2. I had previously heard about iZotope's products, but the first time I saw someone open the Spectral Repair window in RX, I was blown away. Now it is one of my favorite plug-ins. Recently, I worked on the first two seasons of HBO's Entourage. It was originally mixed in Dolby Stereo for those episodes, but needed to be transformed into a 5.1 mix for future releases.
Read MoreIn any Pro Tools system before 8.1, I/O settings are recalled from the Pro Tools Session document. When you opened a Session, any studio settings for your system would be overwritten by the settings stored with that Session file. This meant that studio settings corresponding to your hardware could change when a new Session was opened, especially if that Session originated in a different studio. Likewise, when creating a new Session, if you allowed the I/O Settings to default to Last Used, you could inherit an completely unknown and unsuitable set of I/O settings, depending on what kind of system created the ‘last used’ Session. With HD 8.1 and now Pro Tools 9, Avid have changed things so that I/O settings can be stored with your system. This means that your studio settings can be maintained when opening Sessions created on other Pro Tools systems. These changes help make it easier to move Sessions between different Pro Tools systems. I go on to cover how to use the new I/O Setups in Pro Tools 9. You can read my Pro Tools column every month by buying Sound on Sound or go to the SOS web site. If you aren't a subscriber you can buy individual pdf of any recent article. If you want to see more of the articles I have written for OSound on Sound see a list here on our site.
Regular readers may remember that I have a habit of championing small plug‑in developers, especially when they develop a unique product. So back in May 2009, when I heard about Wave Rider, from a small company based in New Zealand called Quiet Arts Ltd, I followed the progress of this plug‑in with interest on this blog in May 2009, Oct 2009, November 2009, December 2009 and lastly in January 2011. So when Vedat released v2 I reviewed it for Sound on Sound and also compared it with Waves Vocal Rider plug-in. To read my review either buy the magazine or go to the Sound on Sound web site. If you aren't a subscriber you can buy a pdf of the article.
In the May issue, Sound on Sound have published my review of the Avid HD Native card. I was diliberately tough on it. For example I simply removed the HD2 card from my Mac Pro and dropped the HD Native card up and booted up. No trashing of Preferences, nothing and it just worked. I tried all the big sessions I had on my system and they just played even with just 32 samples of HW buffer. To read the rest of the review either buy the magazine, go to the SOS web site. If you aren't a subscriber then you can buy a pdf of the review.
Mike is Pro Tools genius and an award winning ‘audiomeister’, defined as ‘a person of great skill and authority in sound’. His vast array of credits include music (from classical to rock), drama and documentaries across all the BBC Radio networks, as well as audio post production for video and TV, ‘new media’, live sound, commercial CDs, DVDs and podcasts, helping clients tell their stories with sound. He has been described as "an oasis of calm in a stormy creative world"; "quick, creative & easy to work with"; "always going the extra mile"; and "invests himself in the success of your project"’.show me less content in the footer
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Seven radio producers – all based in the north of England – have joined forces to launch a new co-operative venture – ‘Radio Wizards’. It’s equally remarkable that their aim now is to work together on every kind of sound production... except radio!
"It’s taken over a year to get to this point," says ‘wizard’ Mike Thornton, "but now we’ve got a viable business plan, we’ve launched our website and we’re already starting to attract commissions. As a facilities provider we decided to facilitate this partnership and set them up with a web site to help kickstart this excellent partnership."
