Apr 2005
Not Your Average Joe. (He's a Stand Up Guy)
04/30/05 01:00 AM
Joe
W gets himself behind the mic in other
ways
too
- as a jazz band front man and upright bass
player. We had him and his band-mates play
our Babble-On holiday party in 2003 and they
made it a great soirée by swinging and
crooning through jazz standards, offbeat pop
songs and funky riffs of the Sanford &
Son Theme. To be honest, the best description
of what he and his crew do comes from
Minnesota Public
Radio.
To wit, "From somewhere in the Bermuda
Triangle that lurks between swing, jive, and
modern jazz emanate the Space Age strains of
the band that ties swinging instrumental work
with smooth vocal harmonies into a tight
audio Windsor knot, ideally suited to the
purpose, whether that be lounging or
Lindy-hopping."
Couldn't say it better. Game. Set. Match.
A member of the Jaztronauts, and currently laying down some tracks with a different band called The Smarts, Joe's music is eccentric, engaging, hip and slightly twisted...
When not behind a mic (or a martini glass), Joe chases after his young twins and pens radio creative with our neighbor across the hall, Mark Benninghofen at SHOUT! Radio.
You can get re-fills for another "Cuppa" his tunes here.
Got a comment? Please click the link below and let us know...
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What Were The Odds?.....
04/29/05 01:07 AM
Before
I jetted off to Vegas and the 2005
N.A.B. Convention we had an interesting
time working on a radio campaign
for
Colle + McVoy
and the
Minnesota State
Lottery.
These spots weren't about scratch games, but
about The Lottery's largesse with regards to
Minnesota's environment; something rarely
touted. In point of fact, a lot of our dough
gets pumped into the lakes, streams, parks
and wildlife around the state. Really. More
on that,
here.
It's pretty cool to see.
Our announcer was Eden Bodnar, and voice actors Joe Weismann and Gus Lynch were slated to portray two guys B.S.'ing around a campfire during a typical Summer evening in Minnesota - a time when mosquito's strafe and terrorize the locals like Goering's Luftwaffe and DEET investors make an equal killing. Everything was going well with the recording until one of these showed up on 6th Street and cracked at the sidewalk as if it were creme brulée; the building shook, meters flagellated, and every eyebrow went as high as my blood pressure. Our producer, Ramon Nuñez (photo at left) didn't panic at all - he just threatened to juice me if the mix fell apart.
Thankfully, no one was in studio C's voice-over booth while Xcel was doing their archaeological thesis. We were able to move the guys 30 feet away from ground zero and patch them into my studio to finish things off. The spot came out well because the guys had lots of air inside the script (thanks to Brian Ritchie's tight writing) and their chemistry was really natural. Luckily, some sneaky editing removed the pervasive, bowel shaking, sensurround artifacts.
I get my fillings reset next week.
Here's, "Mosquito".
You can find out more about Gus Lynch and Eden Bodnar from Moore Creative Talent.
Joe Weismann is listed through Wehmann Models and Talent.
Got a comment? Please click the link below and let us know...
Lukas and Hamill Working Together Again
04/24/05 03:39 PM
Wednesday,
the 20th, we had a good time recording
an unusually funny radio campaign for
Dairy Queen
Restaurants. Michael Atkinson, the new
Creative Director at Clarity Coverdale
Fury, penned these spots that use
simple, everyday conversations, quirky
sound-design and odd characters to create
some pretty memorable stuff.
As anyone will tell you, that's really hard to do with radio.
For one particular spot called "Kung Fu", Jennifer Edwards-Hughes, the announcer, was in studio here at Babble-On, while the "Kung Fu" brothers Mark Hamill, (yes, him) and Nick Jameson, were brought in via ISDN from studios at Atlantis Group Recording in Santa Monica.
John Lukas brought the mix to life on this spot by adding in some grainy optical noise, lo-fi distortion, Chineses flutes, and awkward pauses to give the whole thing the aura of a badly dubbed 70's Kung Fu movie. The additional kicks, whooshes, thuds and punch reactions were just icing on the cake.
Too bad you can't see their lips move...
Here's, "Kung Fu-New"
"Mark Hamill, in session, braces for another take”
"That's A Wrap" - The 2005 NAB Convention
& Highlights From Las Vegas (but not in
that order)
04/20/05 09:23 PM
I knew that I had arrived in Vegas the moment
I settled into the rattling hotel shuttle bus
and got hit in the mullet with "Wild Wild
West" blaring from some fossilized 80's radio
station while billboards like, "Erocktica Live! Sex,
Sweat & Rock 'n' Roll" flashed by.
At that moment all that came to mind was, "We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy."
Here's the lowdown on the trip...
The Food -
If you ever come here, Eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesar's Palace and sit at the bar. If your lucky, you'll get Dave Cooper as your wait person. Besides being a great raconteur and top notch golf teacher he knows how to give a generous pour and listen to an out-of-towner better than anyone. And, if you watch A&E, you can occasionally see him on "Caesars's 24/7".
The food here takes its cue from the Southwest but with very interesting twists, turns and surprises; just look at the menu. I'd come back here in a heartbeat.
Dave mentioned that I should also try Bradley Ogden's, which is just down the hall at Caesar's. Bradley's philosophy is "Keep it simple; use the freshest ingredients available and put them together in such a way that the flavors, colors and textures combine to bring out the best in each other." Other than the word "simple" he's dead on; check the menu. Food was top shelf. Wait staff was great. Bill was huge. I'd come back here in heartbeat too. Once it returns.
Another nice place that Dave and I discussed was Todd English Olives in the Bellagio. Truly honest Mediterranean food, pleasant staff, and unmatched people watching. I'm convinced that Ken and Barbie were in a booth across from me.
Ken's put on a few. Barbie's still...plastic.
The 2005 NAB Show itself -
HD-Radio
The next "Big Thing" in our industry will be mixing for HD-Radio. Just like HDTV, The HD in HD-Radio stands for High Definition. Will you need a new radio? Yes. Are they Cheap? As an after-market car add-on, relatively. Does it sound better? Yes. Absolutely. Sometimes.
Let me explain...
In laymen's terms; If a station were to use the majority of the space that it has allotted on the dial for its digital signal, the sound would be terrific; near CD quality. If, however, the station were to "multi-cast" - a situation where they would provide different radio programs on one frequency, (more on that later) the sound quality would be, to my subjective ears and listening tests, about the same as regular FM, or as I found in one rare instance - worse. However, to me, all the HD-Radio I heard, sounded way better from a sonic standpoint than anything I've heard to date on satellite radios from Sirius and XM.
The thing that has broadcasters the most geeked about this technology is the multi-casting aspect of it. What's that mean? Well, with a station that is multi-casting you would simply tune your HD-Radio to the same frequency that you always have and you'd hear the main programming that you know. If they offer a sub-channel, there will be a display on the radio that will show you what other offerings they have. Think of it as clicking through a website; you never leave the domain, you just get different pages with different content. For instance you could tune-in to "All Things Considered" on the main channel and, perhaps, "A Few Other Things You Might Not Have Considered" on sub-channel 1, and "Nothing But Speculation Considered" on sub-channel 2. Broadcasters are seeing this as a new way to attract different audiences to the same "brand" while extending their revenue streams.
What will be a very interesting to see is how advertisers and advertising agencies handle HD-Radio's unique feature of scrolling text messages. These messages occur on the screen while music (or other content) is playing, and might show information regarding the artist or album title. The possibility of doing this during a radio ad on an HD-Radio System opens up many possibilities: Is this the place for putting those nettlesome phone numbers that suck the life out of a radio ad? Or maybe, just maybe, we can stick the disclaimers there? Or maybe there is dialogue happening between the audio and the text? I'm looking forward to working with this.
So, is this a lame duck technology like AM Stereo, or Quadraphonic sound? Not likely, as there are more and more stations around the country going live with this technology everyday. Its here to stay.
Will your old AM/FM radio be obsolete? Not completely. And, if so, not for a long time since the main programming content that you know will still be on the same channel in the same way for quite awhile - as i understand it, the digital signal is simply piggybacked onto the traditional analog one.
Am I, as someone who services the broadcast industry, going to buy an HD-Radio? Yes.
Is there anyone in the Twin Cities broadcasting in HD? Yes, on both AM and FM.
5.1 Surround Sound Radio
There is a lot of noise being generated by this very exciting possibility. I was able to listen to several of the surround encoders at the convention and I was really impressed by one in particular thats made by Omni Audio in Cleveland. Not too surprisingly, there are some obstacles to overcome before any of this becomes a broadcast reality; there's a limited amount of content from recording artists and there's no agreed upon encoder for how to definitively broadcast and receive it.
Apparently, and i was completely unaware of this, surround sound radio in an analog form is already alive and well in Japan using a system from SRS Labs. As well, car manufacturers are placing receivers for this type of surround sound in their automobiles. I listened to this particular encoder and found it filled with strange phase stuff when the signal went from surround, to stereo, and then to mono. So, I'm perplexed by its acceptance into the marketplace.
There were two systems that I heard that i thought held real promise. One was made by Omnia Audio and the other was manufactured by Neural Audio. Each approaches the technology in a different manner, which I won't delve into here, but my vote goes to Omnia for creating an encoder that is extremely transparent when going from surround, to stereo, to mono. It sounded real, and it sounded cool.
It will be interesting to see what the marketplace and broadcasters decide to do with it all.
Surround Sound Headphones
That is not a a typo. Surround Sound headphones are real. They sound quite good too, although the bass that you would normally feel "in front" gets a bit lost in the surround mode. If you want to know more, click here. Be aware that, on this site, the default page loads in German, so in the upper left hand corner click the English flag to read the text.
The Few Events I Didn't Attend, And Why -
The First Annual Hard Drive Toss Contest
(I've wanted to throw my own many times. Throwing somebody else's just wouldn't have the same impact.)
Digital Asset Management Happy Hour
(I couldn't tell if this was an event, or a murder clue.)
Come Together, Right Now! Broadcaster Town Meeting on Indecency & Responsible Programming
(Guys, look outside. You're in Vegas)
The Orban All-Star Band
(Frankly, even "Erocktica" looked better)
Miscellaneous Musings About The Trip
My favorite moment came Sunday night as I was walking home from dinner at the Mesa Grill and passed by the enormous fountain show outside the Bellagio hotel.
This is an event.
The water from the fountains was swirling, dancing, rising and falling like something out of Fantasia. Everything was choreographed to music. There was oohing and ahhing as this highly romanticized, way over the top, 60 some odd piece orchestra soared and sawed through, of all things...
"It's a gift to be simple"
Only in Vegas.
What a great trip.
Send us your feedback.
At that moment all that came to mind was, "We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy."
Here's the lowdown on the trip...
The Food -
If you ever come here, Eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesar's Palace and sit at the bar. If your lucky, you'll get Dave Cooper as your wait person. Besides being a great raconteur and top notch golf teacher he knows how to give a generous pour and listen to an out-of-towner better than anyone. And, if you watch A&E, you can occasionally see him on "Caesars's 24/7".
The food here takes its cue from the Southwest but with very interesting twists, turns and surprises; just look at the menu. I'd come back here in a heartbeat.
Dave mentioned that I should also try Bradley Ogden's, which is just down the hall at Caesar's. Bradley's philosophy is "Keep it simple; use the freshest ingredients available and put them together in such a way that the flavors, colors and textures combine to bring out the best in each other." Other than the word "simple" he's dead on; check the menu. Food was top shelf. Wait staff was great. Bill was huge. I'd come back here in heartbeat too. Once it returns.
Another nice place that Dave and I discussed was Todd English Olives in the Bellagio. Truly honest Mediterranean food, pleasant staff, and unmatched people watching. I'm convinced that Ken and Barbie were in a booth across from me.
Ken's put on a few. Barbie's still...plastic.
The 2005 NAB Show itself -
HD-Radio
The next "Big Thing" in our industry will be mixing for HD-Radio. Just like HDTV, The HD in HD-Radio stands for High Definition. Will you need a new radio? Yes. Are they Cheap? As an after-market car add-on, relatively. Does it sound better? Yes. Absolutely. Sometimes.
Let me explain...
In laymen's terms; If a station were to use the majority of the space that it has allotted on the dial for its digital signal, the sound would be terrific; near CD quality. If, however, the station were to "multi-cast" - a situation where they would provide different radio programs on one frequency, (more on that later) the sound quality would be, to my subjective ears and listening tests, about the same as regular FM, or as I found in one rare instance - worse. However, to me, all the HD-Radio I heard, sounded way better from a sonic standpoint than anything I've heard to date on satellite radios from Sirius and XM.
The thing that has broadcasters the most geeked about this technology is the multi-casting aspect of it. What's that mean? Well, with a station that is multi-casting you would simply tune your HD-Radio to the same frequency that you always have and you'd hear the main programming that you know. If they offer a sub-channel, there will be a display on the radio that will show you what other offerings they have. Think of it as clicking through a website; you never leave the domain, you just get different pages with different content. For instance you could tune-in to "All Things Considered" on the main channel and, perhaps, "A Few Other Things You Might Not Have Considered" on sub-channel 1, and "Nothing But Speculation Considered" on sub-channel 2. Broadcasters are seeing this as a new way to attract different audiences to the same "brand" while extending their revenue streams.
What will be a very interesting to see is how advertisers and advertising agencies handle HD-Radio's unique feature of scrolling text messages. These messages occur on the screen while music (or other content) is playing, and might show information regarding the artist or album title. The possibility of doing this during a radio ad on an HD-Radio System opens up many possibilities: Is this the place for putting those nettlesome phone numbers that suck the life out of a radio ad? Or maybe, just maybe, we can stick the disclaimers there? Or maybe there is dialogue happening between the audio and the text? I'm looking forward to working with this.
So, is this a lame duck technology like AM Stereo, or Quadraphonic sound? Not likely, as there are more and more stations around the country going live with this technology everyday. Its here to stay.
Will your old AM/FM radio be obsolete? Not completely. And, if so, not for a long time since the main programming content that you know will still be on the same channel in the same way for quite awhile - as i understand it, the digital signal is simply piggybacked onto the traditional analog one.
Am I, as someone who services the broadcast industry, going to buy an HD-Radio? Yes.
Is there anyone in the Twin Cities broadcasting in HD? Yes, on both AM and FM.
5.1 Surround Sound Radio
There is a lot of noise being generated by this very exciting possibility. I was able to listen to several of the surround encoders at the convention and I was really impressed by one in particular thats made by Omni Audio in Cleveland. Not too surprisingly, there are some obstacles to overcome before any of this becomes a broadcast reality; there's a limited amount of content from recording artists and there's no agreed upon encoder for how to definitively broadcast and receive it.
Apparently, and i was completely unaware of this, surround sound radio in an analog form is already alive and well in Japan using a system from SRS Labs. As well, car manufacturers are placing receivers for this type of surround sound in their automobiles. I listened to this particular encoder and found it filled with strange phase stuff when the signal went from surround, to stereo, and then to mono. So, I'm perplexed by its acceptance into the marketplace.
There were two systems that I heard that i thought held real promise. One was made by Omnia Audio and the other was manufactured by Neural Audio. Each approaches the technology in a different manner, which I won't delve into here, but my vote goes to Omnia for creating an encoder that is extremely transparent when going from surround, to stereo, to mono. It sounded real, and it sounded cool.
It will be interesting to see what the marketplace and broadcasters decide to do with it all.
Surround Sound Headphones
That is not a a typo. Surround Sound headphones are real. They sound quite good too, although the bass that you would normally feel "in front" gets a bit lost in the surround mode. If you want to know more, click here. Be aware that, on this site, the default page loads in German, so in the upper left hand corner click the English flag to read the text.
The Few Events I Didn't Attend, And Why -
The First Annual Hard Drive Toss Contest
(I've wanted to throw my own many times. Throwing somebody else's just wouldn't have the same impact.)
Digital Asset Management Happy Hour
(I couldn't tell if this was an event, or a murder clue.)
Come Together, Right Now! Broadcaster Town Meeting on Indecency & Responsible Programming
(Guys, look outside. You're in Vegas)
The Orban All-Star Band
(Frankly, even "Erocktica" looked better)
Miscellaneous Musings About The Trip
My favorite moment came Sunday night as I was walking home from dinner at the Mesa Grill and passed by the enormous fountain show outside the Bellagio hotel.
This is an event.
The water from the fountains was swirling, dancing, rising and falling like something out of Fantasia. Everything was choreographed to music. There was oohing and ahhing as this highly romanticized, way over the top, 60 some odd piece orchestra soared and sawed through, of all things...
"It's a gift to be simple"
Only in Vegas.
What a great trip.
Send us your feedback.
This Week, Las Vegas is the place to N. A.
Be.
04/16/05 04:22 PM
Last
time I was here, Bush was campaigning
for a second term, Saddam Hussein was a
menace, and the stock market was
tanking.
And that was '91.
Somebody cue the David Bowie tune...
This year, the N.A.B. (National Association of Broadcasters), is holding its annual schmoozefest at the Las Vegas Convention Center and I'll be there to have a look. Hopefully, it'll be an opportunity to find out what's new and interesting with Radio, Television and Web Based Audio. If not, it'll be an unparalleled excuse to explore the visual allure that is the Las Vegas strip by day.
Some of the things I'll be researching will be HDTV, HD Radio (also known as Digital Radio), Surround-Sound Radio, voice over IP technology, as well as new production music and sound effect libraries. After that, during the evenings, I'm anticipating that I'll delve into all the changes the strip has gone through in the past 15 years.
Since I'm not a gambler (other than being a small business owner) I thought I'd do some research on the arts scene before getting into town. Indeed, there are more shows and attractions than there were before, but Vegas is still Vegas. Case in point: An attraction that I would have loved to have seen, but missed, was called The Cow Parade. This was an idea similar to the campaign to have all those Peanuts statues around the Twin Cities; businesses sponsored artists to shape life-sized cows to their particular "taste". The statues were then placed all over the city and then auctioned off for a charity. But in true Vegas style there were entries like, "Cowmercial", "MooMaid", "Nascow", "Cowzilla" and, of course, "Wayne Mooton". As for this, all I can say is, "now, I understand what the cat was thinking"
If you're looking for more, this is where you can find the complete, um... "cowllection"
Looks like I'll be doing more research.
Send us your feedback.
Overheard this week at Babble-On
04/12/05 10:40 PM
Our thanks to Twin Cities voice-over talent
Jeff Gadbois for
getting us hooked on Improv Everywhere.
It's a troupe of "agents" (their words,
not ours) that perform spontaneous acts of
live theater. Well, not purely spontaneous
it turns out, as Charlie Todd, their
ringmaster, explains - "Sure, our missions
are not pure improv. We have a
definite pre-planned agenda. We also
have no idea what is going to happen"
In one skit they decided that members of an unknown band playing their first New York gig should think they were a smash hit. So they studied the band's music and then crowded the performance, pretending to be hard-core fans. Public radio picked up on that particular story and it was recently featured on Ira Glass', This American Life. Hilarious.
Another episode involved having people get on and off the N.Y. subway, without pants. You can download a Windows Media Player vid of that skit from my link here.
Can you imagine what would've happened if this went down on the Hiawatha Light Rail Line?
Good thing "Conceal and Carry" got repealed.
Send us your feedback.
In one skit they decided that members of an unknown band playing their first New York gig should think they were a smash hit. So they studied the band's music and then crowded the performance, pretending to be hard-core fans. Public radio picked up on that particular story and it was recently featured on Ira Glass', This American Life. Hilarious.
Another episode involved having people get on and off the N.Y. subway, without pants. You can download a Windows Media Player vid of that skit from my link here.
Can you imagine what would've happened if this went down on the Hiawatha Light Rail Line?
Good thing "Conceal and Carry" got repealed.
Send us your feedback.
Beau's Jest's - No B.S.
04/10/05 09:31 AM
One of the great things about this job is the
wide variety of people with whom we get to
hang - like writers, broadcast producers,
voice talent and audio engineers from all
over the world.
This week, we had a great time recording voiceover guru Beau Weaver via digital patch with Mike Klinger's Tree Falls in Los Angeles. Beau was tapped to be a really broad announcer character in a radio ad written by Charles Youel of Martin Williams for Syngenta Crop Protection.
The first few passes at the script were a little short, so Beau did what he could do to go a bit slower while still trying to maintain the character. Sometimes thats easier said than done...
We thought this voice he was doing was dead on, so he offered us some background as to how he developed it.
If you want to hear the demo he mentions, I've got it here. Or, you can also go to his website
So, of course, after all this, I absolutely need to know what a true Bullshit Announcer looks like. Some of the finer examples appear to be here, here, and certainly, here.
After we were done recording and piecing together a rough edit we had a chance to B.S. with Beau about what he's been working on. Or, in some cases not working on. Seems that although Beau is one of the busiest actors in L.A., movies aren't in the mix for him...
Beau has a nice website with lot's of interesting stuff you can listen to and a long list of credits. If you want to know more about him or his availability, you can also contact his agent, Cope Management, here.
Send us your feedback.
This week, we had a great time recording voiceover guru Beau Weaver via digital patch with Mike Klinger's Tree Falls in Los Angeles. Beau was tapped to be a really broad announcer character in a radio ad written by Charles Youel of Martin Williams for Syngenta Crop Protection.
The first few passes at the script were a little short, so Beau did what he could do to go a bit slower while still trying to maintain the character. Sometimes thats easier said than done...
We thought this voice he was doing was dead on, so he offered us some background as to how he developed it.
If you want to hear the demo he mentions, I've got it here. Or, you can also go to his website
So, of course, after all this, I absolutely need to know what a true Bullshit Announcer looks like. Some of the finer examples appear to be here, here, and certainly, here.
After we were done recording and piecing together a rough edit we had a chance to B.S. with Beau about what he's been working on. Or, in some cases not working on. Seems that although Beau is one of the busiest actors in L.A., movies aren't in the mix for him...
Beau has a nice website with lot's of interesting stuff you can listen to and a long list of credits. If you want to know more about him or his availability, you can also contact his agent, Cope Management, here.
Send us your feedback.
Star wars is cropping up everywhere (updated
with audio)
04/08/05 11:09 PM
With
all the hype about the new Star Wars
movie, Revenge Of The Sith,
we thought we'd chime in by sharing some
related stuff that we've done. Sure, its
got none of the buzz, bucks, or cachet of
the real deal but y'know, it also doesn't
have this crap. I'd say The
Force is with us.
Tim Russell was hired to portray "Dark Lord Insect" in a radio ad for Syngenta Crop Protection. Of course, his character needed to sound like a mite sized version of Darth Vader - complete with helmet and breathing apparatus.
In order to get that "In the helmet" sound, we recorded Tim's voice-over using a Sennheiser 416 that we modified with, of all things, a CD stack cover with a hole cut into the bottom of it. We had other ideas, but Tim refused the one we thought was the coolest. Dunno why. Looked kinda comfy to us.
In the photo, at left, you can see Tim, as well as the console tape used to hold the CD cover onto the mic - we spare no expense here at Babble-On.
Once we started posting the track we pitch shifted Tim's voice, added some flange and finished with a weird delay. We thought of adding Tom Delay but that would have sounded truly evil.
Other folks who were involved in the production were Greg Berger, J.C. Cutler, John Wehrman and Jeff Gadbois. Here's the spot...
Tim is also the Entertainment Director for WCCO where he does live reports weekday mornings from 5 to 9. Part of that gig involves some travel, so from the 19th through the 22nd of April he'll be covering the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Aside from everything else Tim does, you can hear him on "A Prairie Home Companion", see Minneapolis voice-over talent, Tim Russell's website or book him through his Twin Cities agent, Wehmann Models & Talent, Inc.
Send us your feedback.
Homing in on "The Prairie" (Updated with
audio)
04/08/05 08:14 AM
Sue
Scott, one of the great cast members of
American Public
Media's "A Prairie Home
Companion", was in this week at
Babble-On to record a voice-over for
Marshall Fields
department stores. The session, as usual
with Sue, was fun and provided some pretty
humorous out-takes; like the one below
that happened while she was taking a test
pass at the copy with her headphones set
too high...
Aside from her regular stint on Garrison Keillor's Show, Sue is involved in a movie about the show that is to begin shooting in July. The working title of the film at this point is "Prairie Home Companion, The Movie"(well, we think so anyway) and will be shot entirely on location at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, MN.
If you want to catch the show in person, she and the rest of the crew will be performing at Town Hall in midtown Manhattan during April, with the last show being this Saturday the 23rd. If you've never caught the show live, its worth the effort to do so as it's a great insight into live performance and the foibles of radio production. That, and you'll laugh.
Sue recently launched a website with fellow Prairie Home Companion cohort, Tim Russell. The site is unique and really reflective of their personalities and talent. And, we love the photos on their site. Well, okay, a few of 'em were taken here in Studio A here at Babble-On. Click here to visit "Prairie Home Voices"
You can book Sue through her Twin Cities Agent, Wehmann Models and Talent
Send us your feedback.
"Analogue Fridays" debuts at Absolute Music.
04/05/05 09:51 PM
In
an effort to re-invent what he claims is
now a "boring world of ones and zeroes",
Johnny Hagen has just introduced the
novel concept of "Analogue Fridays" at
Absolute Music.
Seizing on the corporate success of "Casual Fridays", Johnny has decided to do away with all that "preppy-ass sheen" you get with digital audio in favor of tape, tubes, and racks of dusty crap with bakelite knobs. "I don't even know if half this shit still works but, man, the clients dig the blinking lights and wagging needles"
Its really quite simple Hagen told us, "Nobody is doing this... so, I can" Hagen's unique business model is streamlined and, he feels, guarantees a steady flow of clients, "...now, I can make a killing on Monday's using my digital gear to take out all the clicks, pops, hiss and distortion I recorded on Friday. Plus, its environmentally friendly since we're re-using all the audio from the previous week. This whole audio composting movement is at the cutting edge of our industry. Hey, check out my walls, man - they're green.
In reality, Johnny (pictured above doing his best J.J. Walker "Dynomite" thing) is Babble-On's neighbor. Recently he's been transferring some classic tracks he composed and recorded years ago onto a more permanent medium to preserve them for posterity. He's also been working on some other interesting songs and sound-design over the past few weeks that are pretty cool. Check out his site here.
Send us your feedback.