April Whine
HeaderForMonth3Well, much like the monsoon-like weather we've been having here in our little wedge of the Midwest, (which, by the way, continues to delay the onset of our much beloved and sought after Spring climate) we too at Babble-On have been under a deluge of projects that have, figuratively, swamped the gunnels of our recording studios.

Consequently we've been a bit lax with our "appointed rounds" trying to keep stuff current with our Babble-Blog. So, to those of you who've been wondering what's been going on - fear not, we'll get you caught up in a more fluid manner the rest of the month.

April 10th Update - Instead of just going out and buying stock sound effects, we've been making an effort to record and produce distinct sounds that aren't, in our opinion, readily available. John Lukas recently went to the North Shore and captured some wonderfully distinct ambient tones. See "Shoring Things Up" down below.

April 15th Update - We got together our "Dropping In" segment for the month and a nice entry on the power of simplicity - look for "Bringing It Home" down below.

April 23rd Update - With the spate of suddenly nice weather we're having our thoughts have returned to the great out-of-doors. Hooray. This months Techno Babble goes on and on about recording on-location (I smell a theme here). Look near the bottom of the page.

April 26th Update - Every now and then we get an off the wall request to record something truly out of the ordinary - and we're not talking about capturing screaming race cars, people hanging from ropes or dance lines tapping away in a canoe, but something really odd - a bagpiper. I know, hazard pay.
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Laying Some Pipe - Babble-On Gets A Peek Under The Kilt
There are certain things in life that one doesn't truly expect to experience first hand - the Loch Ness Monster, alien abduction and Social Security certainly come to mind, but one might also consider the frightening specter of being exposed to hours and hours of live bagpipe music - and liking it. That last scenario being easily the most strange, threatening and (one would think) as unlikely as having a pleasant and rational dialogue with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But y'know, life doesn't always go as you might think.

A little over a month ago we were asked whether or not we'd ever recorded bagpipes. After a few light chuckles and some good natured ribbing were exchanged, we found out that the writer, Riley Kane, of
Space 150 was very serious about bringing a professional bagpiper into our Minneapolis recording studio. We were asked to capture a few different tracks for a website called, whatsupyourkilt.com, that he and Space 150 were working on for their client, Spacelab.

According to Riley,
“The main idea for this is that spacelab is an incubator R&D group that tests stuff out and measures the results. We’re all about creating engaging entertainment content, and in this case wanted to do something surrounding St. Patrick’s Day. (Irish people wear kilts, too.)”

So, we got to work doing some research on how best to record this very awkward instrument. Turns out discussing this task with fellow recording engineers only created an avenue for them to work out their potential Tonight Show routines. The following exchanges actually took place -

Question: What’s the best way to record a bagpipe?
Answer 1: From about 2 miles away.
Answer 2: Stand bagpiper in street. Close studio door. Lock studio door.

Yup, they're loud. It turns out that you only need a small cluster of these beasties to approximate the rafter shaking volume that the windmilling Pete Townshend and The Who used to generate during their halcyon days. Though I'd offer that any "Bagpiper's Live In Cincinnati" concert would've gotten a little less hype and only the piper's themselves might've been at risk from any stampede.
PiperDude3
Anyway, despite all the potential problems we were foreseeing with this recording, the process ended up being far more pleasant than we could have imagined because the piper was Mike Breidenbach, the Director of Piping at Macalester College. When Mike showed up to do his thing we got a blistering crash course in mic placement for the pipes. Everything sounded clean and smooth as long as we didn’t use any condenser mics or try to mic the instrument too closely. Oddly enough, the above engineer jokes have an air of truth to them, as a bagpipe's sound evens out nicely as the distance from it increases.

(though we’d suggest 2 meters instead of 2 miles.)

Once we found the true sweet-spot in the room, Mike ran down a couple of nice pieces which we could loop for the site, then he was out the door. Strike one more thing from the list of experiences we thought we’d never get to enjoy in our lifetimes.

Here's one of the pieces from which we built the loop, and here's a fabulous collection of bagpipe jokes that we just had to collate and share.
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Bringing It Home - Waters Molitor Sells Dairy Without The Cheese Factor
Amy Mathews voice-over recording2There is a tendency for us here to want to share only the most elaborate, poignant and/or humorous radio spots that we ultimately get to record, edit and mix. Frankly, that's pretty understandable when you realize that, typically, those are the recordings and situations that present themselves as unique or discernibly more interesting than, say, your run of the mill herbicide disclaimer.

I mean, I'm certain that I've spent more time recording voice-over talents saying "Always read and follow label directions..." than
Sir George Martin ever did trying to get Ringo Starr's background vocal's on pitch.

Okay, to be fair, that's an exaggeration. Ringo never sang on key or looked remotely comfortable with a microphone. Come to think of it, neither could Linda McCartney (as this backing vocal from "Hey Jude" can clearly attest).

No wonder Mr. Martin was summarily knighted.
Amy Matthews portrays "Janet" from Old Home Foods

Anyway, sometimes simplicity answers the call far more than elaborate sound design and hip/edgy production music can ever do. And, with Clear Channel pushing their whole "Less Is More" campaign which drives advertisers toward :30 second radio spots, communicating honestly, effectively and creatively has become its own challenge for advertising agencies and their clientele.

Waters Molitor, the Minneapolis ad agency for Old Home Foods, completely understood this dilemma when coming up with a subtle, clear and straightforward campaign of radio spots that they felt would speak with an empathetic voice to Old Home's audience - stressed out mom's looking for quick meal answers.

Sherry Gray, the writer on this project and the Creative Director for the agency had a specific idea in mind when creating these radio ads -

"Waters Molitor specializes in marketing brands to women. So when we became agency of record for Old Home, we helped the brand build a stronger emotional connection with busy moms by demonstrating empathy for the hectic lives they lead.

The goal for this new radio campaign was to make Old Home top-of-mind with women by leveraging its “For the Way You Live” positioning and emphasizing usage ideas along with heritage, loyalty and trust.

We created “Janet” from the Old Home kitchens to serve as an empathetic friend who could listen to any dinner dilemma and solve it with simple, easy-to-remember food ideas. Different women call sounding frantic, stressed, hurried, annoyed, and Janet (Amy Matthews) talks them off the ledge with her calm, it’s-okay approach.

The beauty of this radio campaign is its simplicity. The idea was to keep the spots honest and real....I think the result is a clear, targeted message that makes an emotional connection in a very believable way."

Here are the spots, "Friendly Idea", "Saturday Morning Shuffle" and "Surprise Visit".

Amy Matthews can be scheduled through her Twin Cities voice-over agent,
The Wehmann Agency
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Shoring Things Up - Recording Sounds From "Up North"
John-North-ShoreOne of the great things about working at a recording studio is the opportunity we get to record any number of interesting or bizarre things - anything from famous actors and voice-over talent to strange instruments and sound effects from peculiar locations.

Capturing really great sound effects, in fact, can be one of the most challenging tasks associated with getting the right tone for a radio spot, TV ad or podcast. We've recorded the sounds of winter ice at
Afton State Park, raucous pubs in Bavaria, Porsche 911's snaring the corners at 120+mph, dishwashers that leak and creak (my own, actually... how convenient), and even the sound of a rider ditching out an ATV at high speed - although (ahem) that last one was slightly "unintentional".

Often the key to getting really great sound is to steal a page from the world of photography and it's approach to long exposures: have an interesting subject, use a steady hand, grab a good focal point, be patient, and maintain a willingness to move and refocus as conditions change.
John hones in on getting some choice North Shore tones

Just for fun, our own John Lukas went up to his family's cabin on
Minnesota's North Shore a couple weekends ago to see if he could capture some (forgive me) Great Lake sounds for our sound effects library. He brought along our Neumann RSM 191 Stereo Mic and its zeppelin, an ibook, an Mbox audio interface and, no doubt, a beer or two. With just a few minor location adjustments over the course of his time there he was able to capture the unique sounds of the North Shore's waves on the rock beaches and huge granite slabs that line the coast in front of the cabin. John said it was amazing to hear how dramatically the sound of the waves shifted and mutated based solely on the distance from, or the composition of the coastline.

We put together three quick samples of the sounds he recorded to showcase the striking contrast you can get by simply moving a scant 60 feet one way or another.

This sample is of an inlet in the granite slabs where the waves wash in.

Here's a sample giving an overview about 20 feet from the waves.

This third sample gives you a perspective from the rock beach. (Note the backwash of the stones in the waves.)

So, if you got an idea germinating that might benefit from having that "weekend at the cabin" sound vibe, know that we've got you covered. And, if instead you need the sound of scuba diving in Fiji?

Well, just buy me the plane ticket. I'll bring the gear.

I might even spring for Red Stripe or two.
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Patience and Care - Editing Interviews With Cancer Survivors For AlTru
Normally in this space we make a sincere effort to be frank, funny and flippant about things that we're working on, while being reasonably informative about them too. And, to be honest, that kind of style flows pretty easily onto the page when most of what we're riffing on is stuff about a product or service that has an air of entertainment or fun tied to it.

Cancer, to be sure, is neither entertaining or fun - and the mere mention of it makes moot any gratuitous humor we might normally throw in here having to do with sock puppets, rim shots, or faded celebrities. Just doesn't fit. As one who has had to deal with cancer in my own family, I feel that this is something to which I can pretty easily attest.

Additionally, cancer doesn't typically lend itself to the normal approaches one might take to producing radio spots either - snappy dialogue, heavy sound-design and witty voice-overs would more than likely just swamp and sabotage any attempt to handle this topic respectfully or even effectively. It demands a completely different approach. Which is one of the reasons we wanted to share some recent work we just did with
Clarity Coverdale Fury and their client AlTru Cancer Center of Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Jerry Fury, the writer for this series of radio spots took a very discerning and philosophic approach -

"There’s something about the word cancer that tells me not to make jokes about it. That said, when I set out to do these spots [for AlTru], I didn’t think funny. Instead I thought about how people and families with cancer talk to other people and families with cancer for support and information and education.

I decided to record interviews with real patients at the Altru Cancer Center in Grand Forks hoping to get responses that came directly from their hearts not from the mind of a writer like myself. Having done this style before I knew what I wanted to get, so when I asked the questions I reminded the patients to answer me in sentence form – so they could play the questions back to me with their answers. That way it’s so much easier to use their responses in any order you like and [then] cut and paste sentences together to create a single story line."

From an editing standpoint radio projects like these can be fairly demanding - which, in point of fact, is part of their reward. With literally hours and hours of interviews from which to cull material, it's not unrealistic to pass large swaths of time listening for a single word or phrase, said in the right context, with the proper inflection and true to the original content, that can then be used to finish an incomplete sentence or idea. And, while there's great satisfaction in getting an edit like that just right, it's equally maddening to realize that this piece you've taken hours to create has just clocked in at ninety-five seconds. Unairable. Now, It'll need to be cut in half and yet, somehow, maintain its naturalness.
AlTru-Hospital-3
Instead of working traditionally with set scripts and ideas, Jerry wrote and cut scratch tracks while in studio

The really cool thing about this process though is that timing issues like these can be resolved in a variety of ways. The best way, and the method that we ultimately used, was to get the interviews edited down to a random time that was under sixty seconds. Then, Jerry listened to the resultant edit and began writing copy that was germane to it - effectively spackling in the holes and filling out the edges to get us to sixty seconds. Finally, to make sure we were truly accurate, he recorded a scratch voice-over to see if his length of copy estimate was right. Once this was done, we simply had to record our real voice-over announcer, Chris Nissley from L.A., and get the mix levels together.

"I think the challenge in making commercials using real people is that you never know what you’re going to get or how you’re going to put it all together. To me it’s like having the pieces to a puzzle but not knowing what the puzzle is supposed to look like until you finally get it put together. Done well, the spots can have a very honest and trusting voice that bodes well for the brand. I’m happy with the way they turned out."

Here are the spots, "Steve Moen", "Kay Mendick", "Lani Caraway", and "Molly Hape."

Christopher Nissley can be booked through his voice-over agent, Innovative Artists in Santa Monica.
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Techno Babble - Lose That Studio Tan!
Techno-Babble-On-Final-220Situation: Your new award winning radio ad has a couple on a first date enjoying the night air and then getting into their car for the ride home. Sounds like a lot of heady sound design trying to evoke the aural perspective of a walk in the park that then shifts to the tight confines of a car doesn't it?

Yup - your spidey senses are well attuned.

Ever considered going out and recording your voice-over talent actually doing what the characters in your script are supposedly doing?

(With respect to the aforementioned scenario, we'd politely skip the "doing" and just keep it to light conversation, popcorn and hand holding)

You may feel this is a lot of foolish excess since recording studios have futzed these sound effects for years and no one seems to be the wiser. True enough, we’ve gotten pretty good at fooling the average listener into believing whatever environments we're looking to mimic.

However, when one considers the wow factor and glossier nuances of recording on-location versus the pittance of extra work and money required to do it, recording on-location becomes a logical alternative.

The most tangible benefit (well, in our sonically-biased brains, anyway) is that as good as the tools of the trade have gotten for us with automated EQ's, impulse/response reverbs, mult-tap delays, and sonic widgets galore - nothing ever sounds as real and/or as transparent as actually being there. And if the weather is nice - you've just gotten to the bonus round.

Ads that are mixed with audio that was recorded on-location stand out from other radio spots as glaringly as a supermodel on “The Biggest Loser.” Equate it with shooting an actor against a blue screen in order to place him in some stock-footage meadow, versus rounding up a crew and shooting the actor in a real, beautiful meadow (bug bites not withstanding). It’s apples 'n oranges. The same holds true with shooting audio for radio, except it’s a lot easier and cheaper for us to meet you and your voice-over talent at the corner of 10th and Nicollet than it is to get a video|film crew set up on-location - and we never whine about craft services.

We’ve had great success (and fun) recording on location, and it never fails to result in – okay, I’ll just call it what it is – a cooler final mix than anything we could do in the recording studio environment. Imagine a scene in an upstairs bedroom: girlfriend getting dressed, reminding her boyfriend that they’re to meet her annoying sister for dinner tonight, to which he responds with a half-hearted grunt and a turn of his heel as he heads down the creaky steps. Now imagine it being captured in an almost documentary-style recording with a single stereo mic acting as the ears of your listener. A fly on the wall - and a sonic world apart from any recording studio session.

We've actually recorded that above scenario along with things like a couple chattering away in the stands at a game, kids arguing in mini-vans (no direction needed there), party revelers lounging around a backyard, folks splashing in the lake at the cabin, even tap-dancers doing what they do in a canoe (no, that's isn't a misprint).

So, give some thought to setting the scene of your next radio ad in some odd place that'll separate it from the dull, thick and ordinary offerings that season the airwaves. The added cost isn't that significant and, with modern technology, it'll be a piece of cake for us to rip an audio CD of all the takes for you before you leave the scene - saving you time and money when editing back at the recording studio.

Get your parka, shorts, umbrella, sun block and waders. The fresh air will do us all some good!
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Dropping In - April '06
Dropping-In-4SmallAs with previous months of "Dropping In", our hope here is to offer you a snippet of what we're receiving here regularly from our vendors in addition to some wonderful and interesting tracks that we've had on our shelves for awhile that we feel are deserving of a fresh listen - an "amuse bouche d'audio" if you'll forgive the run-on sentence and equally pompous analogy.

This months sampling includes a bit of Cool Jazz, Electronica, Banjo/Bluegrass, Reggae, Harp, Epic Movie Music, Small Jazz Combo and the gratuitous sound effect of the month.

If you hear something that strikes a chord, let us know and we'll set it aside for your next session here at the recording studio. Here are the tunes. Here's the sound effect.
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