Editors:
Mary (ISDN queen) Mazurek
and
Kathy (Splice Girl) Dunaj

Volume 16 Number 6
June, 2001

EARS and AES Chicago Meet at
Engine Music Studios
And Colossal Mastering

1644 North Honore, Chicago
Engine (773) 772-6200
Colossal (773) 292-1692
Tuesday June 26, 7:30 pm

In our next meeting we'll join forces with AES-Chicago! Their final meeting for the 2000-2001 year will be on June 26th at our usual 7:30pm.

Bob Katz of Digital Domain Mastering will discuss dither and other digital audio issues. They will also have their election for the 2001- 2002 officers at this meeting, but you EARS cats dummy up, then. The meeting will take place at Engine Music Studios and Colossal Mastering. (1644 North Honore, in Chicago).
- Gary Khan-

EARS Appreciation File

April's meeting was held at the very swank and spacious Audio Recording Unlimited located in the Wrigley Building. Many thanks to the legendary engineer, Don Arbuckle and his crew for the fantastic tour, stories and delicious eats. Don led a discussion on the history of his career, ARU, and the way the industry has changed. No more cutting tape, now it's recording and exporting...workstations and websites...and ARU has certainly stayed ahead of the game. Here's some way cool info on that discussion from Don himself!
-KD-

Don started in 1970 with his own sound reinforcement business doing live theater and industrial work. One thing led to another and he went to work for the Tribune in 1979 in their marketing services department, producing Multi-Image presentations. After the Tribune, he went to work for Garrett Sound located in the old "8 track studios" facility, a 24 track post production facility. While engineering production work at Garrett, he was also freelancing as a programmer of Multi image shows for companies like AGS&R and VTI and as a TV audio mixer with Trio Video here in Chicago, working on shows like Phil Donnahue and all the local professional sports teams broadcasts. After Garrett closed, Don went to River North Recorders as their technical director and production engineer doing spots and industrials. Don left River North and his freelance career in June of 1988 to help Mike King build Audio Recording Unlimited.

ARU has grown from its original 2 studios on one floor of the Wrigley Building to 5 audio studios on 4 floors. The facility has 4 Fairlight Fame systems and 1 Pro Tools Suite. ARU records mainly radio/TV spots. ARU's services include: Large Music Library, with thousands of music cuts, Spot Trafficking via the Internet using 256k MP3 technology to radio stations worldwide (their client or radio stations can have the spot in minutes on a secure website), and ISDN availability, capable of sending and receiving audio and time code. For more information contact Don at ARU 312-527-7000. Or visit their website at www.aruchicago.com.

Again, special thanks to Tom Parnell of Next Generation Marketing who co-ordinated with Lexicon's Greg Hogan and local dealer, Perry Miller to set up their new Lex 960 w/ LARC II in FULL SURROUND, letting our ears be the judge in a very non-pushy demo and critical listening opportunity!
-GK-

In our last exciting episode [May's meeting], Chris DeMonk took us on a technical tour of the House of Blues main sound system which featured custom, in-wall record feeds at the building's rear and a new "recording room". We climbed to the VIP level while 3 acts pummeled our EARS ears. Guest attendees included Gand Sound's head cheese, Tim Swan. Several, in attendance at that meeting (and since) have encouraged Don to push Gary's theory as to what the heck BASF really stands for to their marketing dept. but I doubt they'll keep it intact: Buy Analog Sh*t Forever!

Thanks also to House of Blues Production Manager Jeff Darden and a most honorable mention to Toshi Iseda who as a "Blues Foundation" member,provid- ed access to the serene VIP rooms. Once again, to the always "Decent" Don Morris for puttin'up 60 "samolians" toward the resulting bar tab and the beloved "Crazy" Chris Kirby for making the most noise.Finally to their VIP host Mike, Bar-keep Wendy & Waitress Tasha for makin' our gaggle comfy!

Special EARS Cheers to Mike Konopka (who's more than "paid his dues" professionally AND in support of EARS), Rich Mastella (see "dateline"), Pogo's Mark Rubel (our Urbana ambassador), RCL's Johnny "Mack" and Mary Jo, Accutrac's Dave Levitt, Tim Swan (see recap), and BASF's Don Morris for "heedin' the call" for their annual dues to keep EARS alive. It's the honor system and we're well into the new year, folks. Remember it offsets only the expenses, not volunteered time, to keep EARS The Sound Engineer's "Incorruptible Conduit of Comraderie" since '86! We continue to share pro- fessional tips, skills, info, warnings and opportunities -even if you can't make the monthly meetings via this scruffy,down to earth Eardrum. The plan has always been to make it easy for clients across this country to do their biz with us by elevating our craft, attitude and sharing/referring resources in the spirit of friendly competition. This long-term wisdom of this kind of thinking has proven itself over and over i.e. here, in Nashville and elsewhere so ante up, y'all !

If you have requests, gripes, suggestions or other input that would make us more relevant to you and your professional specialty; be it S.R., Broadcast, Music, Media-Industrials production, Project Studio work, Mastering, Remote- Location recording, Post-Film work, etc... Let's hear from you with articles, meeting host offers, guest topic speaking offers or at least e- or voice mailed comments! pegasusrecording@ameritech.net or 773-880-5000
-GK-

Dateline June, 2001

Congrats to new Naras-Chicago Governors, our own VP Kathy Dunaj and fellow EARS member Barbara Nashold of Colossal Mastering. The chapter's members finally realized what we EARS cats already knew: you're the "reel" deal. Now you know what it's like to have to show up at TWO meetings per month! Carry the EARS banner well and embody the Sound Engineer 's "Uncorruptible Conduit of Comraderie" as you join the ranks of such past Ears members/Naras electees as Harry Brotman, Malcolm Chisolm, Hudson Fair, Marty Feldman, Mike Freeman, Tom Haban, Reid Hyams, Gary Khan, Danny Leake, Gary Loizzo, Doug McBride, George Minol, Hank Neuberger, and our founding spirit; Mike Rasfeld!

Congrats to Studio "B" Digital Recording in rockin' Rockford for having won this year's (2001) "RAMI" (Rockford, Area Music Industry) Award. If that don't make you jealous enough, their Chief, Mike Castronovo also won the RAMI award for "Best Recording Engineer".

Our own Mary Mazurek appeared to prove that we can "do what we do" in our sleep (morning gig). You can see her fine tuning mic placement in a feature about The International Music Foundations and The Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series on Chicago's Municipal Channel (usually 23) with WFMT on-air personality Kerry Frumkin actually acknowledging her as the enginee/"foreman" (?)responsible for gettin' literally hundreds of Dame Myra Hess live concerts on the air since '92.

Let's offer a supportive EARS Cheers to 2 long-time members and classy dudes. Chicago Trax's Reid Hyams recently had surgery. Hope your up and around real quick, buddy. Also to veteran staffer/freelancer (Paragon, Pegasus, Sound Studios, Audio Mixers, etc.) Rich Mastella who, after recently turning the corner during an extended bout with his own health issues, lost his Mom just before his 50th b-day. Finally to vet Steve Yates, and his very cool wife Laura who are recovering from a "health setback". Keep the faith, you guys !

Late congrats to The Tape Co.'s Sharon Kretzer-Heneghan, who "reproduced" an authentic, spankin' new baby boy- Declan, that hopefully resulted from high fidelity!
- GK-

Tech Tip
Exporting Audio
By: Kathy Dunaj

The voice-over recording industry is changing. Back in the old days, I would record a voice over, edit the good takes together, search for music, and then do a final mix. More and more clients are asking for voice overs as .WAV (Windows Audio File Format) or .AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format, created by Apple). Some clients also have their own music library, do their own mix, and transfer it to a website or CD ROM. Avid editors can also use AIFF files. Since engineers/editors now have more control of tracks, they can place the VO and music to video allowing more flexibility. For Avid/Pro Tools houses, the AVoption and AVoption XL allows integrated playback, recording & direct importing of Avid media directly in Pro Tools. DigiTranslator (which ships free with AV Option) allows Bi-directional interchange of Avid & Pro Tools sessions via OMF 2.0. Since not every studio has an Avid in the back room, there are some helpful ways to record and export files which can be opened up on most PCs and Macs. Obviously various workstations will export differently.

SVI recently purchased a Pro Tools 5.1 Mix Plus system, which I use for recording music and post sessions, as well as voice overs. I will refer to it as PT for this article. PT will export file formats including: WAV, AIFF, SDII (Sound Designer II), Real Audio G2, MP3 (MPEG -1 layer 3), Quick Time, and Sound Resource (for use with other Mac programs which will not see SDII or AIFF files).

An important note to think about when using any software, is level. Nothing is worse than that client call " The audio sounds low on our program...blah, blah,blah." Make sure you record your session hot enough. If this is not possible, and some engineers cringe from the word normalize, you may need to raise the gain internally before exporting. Tools such as Maxim from Digi, and L1 from Waves, are available for maximizing audio. You can add 6-7db without adding extra artifacts or increasing the noise floor.

An option to choose when creating a new session is to record it natively as an AIFF, or WAV session and not as a SDII. SDII files will not be recognized by Windows systems, so they will need to be converted later. Choose Enforce Mac/PC Compatibility when starting a new session to ensure compatibility on both Mac and Windows platforms.

After recording a VO session, edit the takes together as you normally would. Quick Tip: For major time savings use the takes pop-up functionality, which allows you to see all VO takes on a track in a pop-up list. Hold the Command Key and Click to the beginning of the insertion point, all the takes will be displayed for that region. If internal edits were made to the file, you will need to "Consolidate Selection" before exporting or the region will be separated. Continuing on, add any eq, level, or effect changes as desired. Unless an AudioSuite plug in was used, you will need to bounce to disk to print the fx and automation. If you are bouncing a stereo file, choose Stereo Interleaved for the file format or the result will be two files (left and right). To save time you can bounce to disk and choose to convert to WAV or AIFF.

Most (some) of the time clients will be prepared with a script that has the files names clearly marked. It is important to know what the paragraph, sentence, or word is to be called so they can find it. Remember: files are not like tape, once you transfer it to a file format nothing is in sequential order, so label it properly.

When you are satisfied with your edits, and all regions are named correctly, Select All in the edit window. In the region bin they will all be highlighted to the corresponding selects in the edit window. (Assuming Region List Selection Follows Track Selection is checked in the Setups/Preferences/Editing window) Next choose Export Selected Files As...A window will pop up allowing you to select file type, bit depth, sample rate, and where to export to. That's It!

Now you are ready to burn the files to CD or copy to a Zip or Jaz disk if needed. My preference for burning to CD is to use Toast. I usually choose the ISO 9660 format because it works for Mac and Windows. Always take the time to check the CD before it goes out! We have Macs and PC's here at SVI, so I will check the files on both platforms to make sure I can open them.

Special thanks to Jeff Komar for his technical expertise. Jeff is a Midwest Product Specialist for Digidesign.

Who have you been working with lately? We want to know! If you have any ideas for stories, wish to contribute an article, want to include any upcoming events, or have a tech tip, please contact:

Mary at pegasusrecording@ameritech.net. Or write to:
Peagasus Recording P.O Box 578903, Chicago, IL 60657.

Kathy can be reached at SVI, or
kathy@soundvideoimpressions.com.