Let’s start with an HD INDIE feature called “Box Elder”.  This is a project in the spirit of (maybe) Kevin Smith and I think the tag line sums it up nicely – “On the road to nowhere these guys call – SHOTGUN!”  I had the pleasure of mixing this movie and working closely with Director Todd Sklar and Producer Brock Williams.

Whenever I am bidding on a feature project one of my first questions is “Do you have distribution?”  There are a number of reasons for this but for my bidding purposes this will mean that if the answer is “yes”, I will get a long list of “deliverables” which will specify how the audio is to be finalized and delivered.  Often I hear “no distribution, we’re going to hit the festival circuit and then it’ll get picked up.”  I won’t go into the pitfalls of this “model” at this time, but filmmakers following this “plan” may well be disappointed.

The team from Box Elder had/have a quite novel approach.  When I asked Todd Sklar about distribution or film festivals for “Box Elder” he said “no, I have a different plan.”  He instead was “going on tour.”  There is a lot of heat about Todd and his tour which can be found here on his website. I also did an interview with Todd for this blog in which he discusses his unique model.  Those who are interested in the trials, pitfalls, triumphs and solutions to INDIE filmmaking should give it a read.  Those who are particularly interested in sound for film should read it.  And not just “sound people”, Todd had many insights regarding audio when he got the post stage and also about his location recordist Mr. Jesse “C-Nug” Brown.  Kudos to Todd for spying back on the process and understanding how to make things even better next time.  And kudos to the Box Elder team for such an entertaining production on a shoe string budget.  The new 2-disk set is available from Todd on the “Box Elder” website. Buy two and share!

Next up is the documentary “Fat Head” produced and starring Tom Naughton.  A perceptive and well researched project that concludes that everything you know about food, diet and eating is wrong.  Tom makes a very persuasive argument.  In the process he tackles the FDA, The Center For Science in the Public Interest, the US Government and documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock.  This is a highly recommended documentary for those interested in better nutrition, weight loss and the often dubious practices of the government and documentary filmmakers.

A wealth of additional information on the doc is available on the movie’s website. Tom is a recovering stand-up comic and a highly intelligent and entertaining guy.  His doc is deeply researched, filled with great facts and figures that are fleshed out by wonderful and funny animations and sharp observations about “the great experiment” that the US government has foisted on an unsuspecting populace.  It is not available in US until Feb 3, 2009 but it can be purchased directly through Amazon.com.

One of my New Years wishes will come true in ’09 if I can see Tom and Morgan sitting across from Oprah and debating the merits of a “fast food diet!”  As you can see from the picture “You’ve been fed a load of bologna!”  I have many favorite moments from this movie but I particularly like the news footage of the McGovern sub-committee telling the scientists to “develop cholesterol free eggs.”  Yep, we vote ‘em in….

Finally I want to bring to your attention a very different sort of documentary by filmmaker Costa Mantis.  ”Flying Pumpkins – The Legend of Punkin Chunkin”.  Costa made a delightful feature doc about an annual event held in Delaware each year.  Started as a simple challenge between two bored neighbors about who could throw a pumpkin farther across a field with a home-made contraption, it’s now a four day event that benefits charity.  It’s a fascinating look at an obsession of kids, young adults and the young at heart who build awe-inspiring contraptions to throw – pumpkins.

You can find a wealth of information regarding the movie and and Costa at his website here. You’ll see retired IBM execs, journalists, mechanics and engineers, scouts and students perfecting all sorts of machines to toss pumpkins.  It’s grown to a point that there are categories for catapults, air canons, torsion contraptions and more as well as kid and adult divisions.  It is beautifully photographed with a terrific bluegrass score.  This one is for the family.  In a time of ever decreasing quality family fare this one is truly for the young and old.  Kudos to Costa and the Pumpkin team as well as all the participants in the annual event.  The doc shows a cross section of event participants as they build and assemble their monster machines and then shoot pumpkins across a field! This disk is available on the website listed above.

Again in the interest of full disclosure I am not a producer, investor or financial participant of these movies in any way.  There is no financial incentive or renumeration for this post or any of my endless PR for these shows.  I am a true fan and friend of all these filmmakers and understand the difficulty of INDIE film and documentary filmmaking.  I am a champion of them and their grit and determination to finish these projects and I, in my small way, want to spread the word about their acheivements.  Rent, buy, or attend a screening of these movies and become a supporter of INDIE filmmaking!

I was recently mixing a broadcast project with some serious audio issues.  These production issues are always a head scratcher.  There was an interview of two subjects sitting side by side.  One was distorted and sounded like they were in a wind tunnel, the other sounded clean.  The scene cut between a two-shot and individual close-up shots of the talent.  None of the audio cuts even remotely matched even though they were sitting next to each other!   Blasts of clean audio cut to distorted audio cut to the wind tunnel.  I was asked to “clean it up a bit.”   Easier said than done!

I started checking through my box of tools to tackle the problem and several fit the bill.  I won’t name the other programs but one of them wouldn’t authorize although I’ve owned it for over a year.  Their website was useless for this and they wanted me to pay for support.  I can’t quite figure out how these companies have the gall to charge me to figure out why the program I bought and paid for won’t load.   But … that is a rant for another day!  Let’s just say that I have had these problems with this company before and now I’ve finally “washed” my hands of their noise reduction product and them.  (hint, hint…)

RX has five separate modes for tackling tough audio problems.  These are not unique to iZotope since these are the types of tools generally found in similar sorts of programs.  However the iZotope implementation has a wide variety of parameters to adjust how the source file is being effected.  These are very powerful tools with a real range of abilities.  A brief description of each is -

Declipper – a repair algorithm that finds and repairs analog or digital clipping or overmodulation.

Declicker – a repair algorithm that finds and repairs clicks and crackles from recordings.

Hum removal – a repair algorithm that finds and repairs hum and buzz.

Denoiser – a repair algorithm that finds and repairs pesky broadband noise problems.

Spectral Repair – a repair algorithm that finds and repairs random noise within an audio file.  Pretty cool feature.

Unfortunately for me I had to use each of these tools on this interview.  And they rocked it.  The hum removal is an adjustable comb filter that takes out the main frequency hum and it’s associated harmonics.  (Comb filters are filters of many small bands that graphically look like a – comb.)  This has many parameters to adjust and worked like a charm right off the bat.  Next I had several bits of horribly distorted audio.  Using the declipper tool I was able to make things sound less awful.  Not great but definitely better.  I can’t blame RX on this one, fingers pointed squarely at the sound recordist.  Each of these tools have a box where you can audition only the portion of the audio which is being filtered, adjusted, manipulated or repaired.  I wanted to check that the decipper was actually addressing the issue and when I listed to only the audio to be repaired lo and behold all I heard was distortion.  So although it didn’t “fix” the file it took some of the edge off.

Next up was the A/C – wind tunnel problem.  This was a real treat.  I used the denoiser tool to clean these audio bites up.  As is the case with other similar tools on the market you find a “clean” portion of the noise (huh??) and “train” the filter what to remove.  Once it’s trained you process the file.  There are a couple of denoiser algorithms and I found in this case the “offline” ones worked best.  I am working in ProTools and you can run the RX tools as inserts to process the track in real time.  Since these had so many different noise problems I hard-processed the files and rewrote them.  These higher powered algorithms are not available as a real time insert and instead process offline – or in other words rewrite the file with the processing.  The difference was stunning.  All of a sudden I was able to match the audio files to sound like they were actually – recorded well!

This is a highly effective tool for audio post.  I have not used it specifically on music sources but if you check their website out you’ll see several powerful demonstrations specific to music.  I have used all of the major software vendors for noise reduction as well as the high-end hardware units.  Now this can’t compete with the dedicated hardware solutions but it’s not thousands of dollars either.  If you find yourself up against difficult audio restoration in your projects I would highly recommend RX as a solution.  These tools can make you a hero to the producers who want a “little clean up” on their horrible audio recordings!

Most good monitor speakers, have good electronics, good woofers and tweeters in a nicely designed box with maybe a dip switch or two to bump or dip a particular frequency to correct for room anomalies. These JBL’s are a whole new class of monitor with bells and whistles that actually add value. The front panel will strike you with not only a row of buttons including the power switch, but also with a calibrated LED meter. These buttons will power up the monitors, solo individual speakers, enter into calibration mode, activate and access EQ settings, select input modes and step up or down through settings (+/-). You can choose the meters to be dimmer or brighter or off completely by pressing the +/- buttons simultaneously a couple of times. And since we are all so lazy these days, all of these functions and more are available through a remote control!

The rear panel also hosts a list of input and output options. There are XLR and 1/4 inch TRS analog inputs, as well as AES/EBU and S/PDIF digital inputs. By accessing the front panel controls you can select the active inputs to monitor as many as three separate sources, digital and analog . The analog ins go through 24-bit/96kHz A/D converters, and the digital ins can support sampling rates from 96kHz down to 32kHz . They have also included an input sensitivity switch which toggles between – 10 dBV and +4 dBu.

There is a lot of convenience and options with these monitors. As you can see there are plenty of I/O options, superior functionality, fantastic sound reproduction and as if no detail is too small they actually included handles on the side of each monitor for ease of movement and positioning. If you study the rear panel picture you’ll also see USB and CAT5/Ethernet I/O as well. That’s right – these speakers not only talk to each other through the CAT5 but they speak to the computer system as well! And we’ll get the their “Room Mode Correction” feature in a minute.

These monitors use JBL’s proprietary LSR (Linear Spatial Reference ) technology. In JBL’s own words – “LSR technology measures the performance of a speaker over a sphere that encompasses all energy radiated into the listening environment in every direction and analyzed algorithmically via known psycho-acoustic principles to calculate complete and accurate optimization of the sound field, including the direct sound field, the reflected sound field and the reverberant sound field.” Which is a fancy way of saying these speakers offer superior reproduction of sound sources and that they put a lot of time, research and moola into developing this monitor technology.

JBL has also incorporated their RMC (Room Mode Correction) technology into this monitor system. It’s a clever and simple system to use. Since so many music producers, video editors and sound editors and mixers are working at home or in very compromised spaces this technology has been developed to compensate. All you need to do is set up the monitors in their mix position, network the monitors with their included CAT5 cables, attach the included microphone into the back of the “left” monitor and position it at “ear height” of the mixing sweet spot and press the RMC front panel button. It sweeps the space with tones, calibrates the monitors and stores the information. Done! I have not had the opportunity to try this in a compromised space, I’m using them here in my professional studio, but I have contacted others who are truly amazed at the difference they found before and after. The RMC switch allows you to bypass so it is easy to A/B to hear the difference between the corrected and uncorrected signal.

So, yeah, blah, blah, blah, how do they sound? In a word – great. These monitors have astonishing clarity in the mids and highs and no mud down at the bottom and excellent stereo imaging. I have auditioned a wide range of material through them and they handle high decibel levels with ease and sound great all down the line. As a long time user of another company’s monitors, I was sure that these JBL’s would not be much competition. I was wrong, so wrong in fact I am no longer a user of those monitors (HINT – made in Finland) and have now outfitted Mix Suite A with the LSR4328′s. There can be no greater recommendation than that. If you are in the market for professional monitor speakers, I am of the opinion that you can’t do better than these for this price point. Also check out their little brothers the LSR4326′s which offer all the same bells and whistles with a slightly smaller woofer. They are even better priced and would work quite well in smaller spaces.