I’ve always been more of a studio cat. The live sound thing is something I’ve never tried to get into too much. I just can’t see myself working my way up in bars around the city, spending late night after late night mixing bands who in truth, I would never go see live in the first place. I prefer a nice controlled environment, sitting in a comfy Herman Miller behind a console with time to mess around. Don’t get me wrong though, a studio gig can and usually does get hectic but once you’re up and running most of the hard work is done and it’s up to the musicians to execute. But the live sound gig is an entirely different monster. That’s why I have all the respect in the world for a good live sound engineer. These guys are able to problem solve on the fly, adjust their rigs to different environments and most of all, they do it extremely fast, and they don’t stop for most of the day/night.

So me being me, when my friends from Petty Victories asked me to help them out with their live sound I accepted right away. Why not build up my chops in less familiar territory with ONE great band. I think to myself, being a band’s personal audio guy is much better than slaving away in bars. I get to work on one sound, one setup, and perfect it, much like a studio gig environment. And let me tell you, so far its been such a pleasure. I get to listen and work with two of the most beautiful and talented girls I know.

So if you haven’t heard of Petty Victories yet, they came out with an album earlier this year titled “Wait It Out” that you can listen to here:



And If they’re ever in your city playing a show, they’re a must see! (And chances are…I hope…that it will sound good!!!)

/nb

Every now and then I work on a project that is outside my everyday realm. I’m all for new challenges and pushing my limits or else I get bored. I’m not the type who gets comfortable doing the same things over and over again.

This time around it was a film directed by Adam Makarenko (Great Lake Swimmers, Zeus) — http://makarenko.posterous.com — Adam has made a name for himself by specializing in what has been coined “miniature photography”. In 2007 he was awarded American Photo of the Year by American Photo Magazine for his work.

He’s now incorporating this method into his film work by transporting his characters into these fantastic worlds. For the film, Adam asked me to do the Sound Design and the Audio Mix. The music was played and composed by Jane Bunnett. It premiered at the Sante Fe Independent Film Festival in October of last year and you’ll be seeing it on Bravo sometime soon.

Take a few minutes and watch the film here — LOST by Adam Makarenko

Enjoy!

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I’m not going to get technical on the subject. It’s an audiophile’s first mistake when trying to explain audio quality to a non tech.

Last year I prepared a short presentation for some folks at Sennheiser Canada about audio file compression. The presentation outlined different kinds of compression and codecs, and blah blah…(insert geeky audio things here) But the best part of it was the audio demonstration of file compression artifacts.

Put two audiophiles in a room together and you’ll hear the same old discussion about audio quality that has been had for years. And the sad truth is that the average consumer doesn’t care. And even more so, they’ll run for the exit if you try to explain it to them.

So with the following audio samples, it’s a simple way of showing someone the loss in quality during the compression process. The result represents the audio that was stripped away in order to make your file smaller (so you can fit 10,000 songs on your device)

I chose a Joni Mitchell tune done by Herbie Hancock and Tina Turner to demonstrate. It’s a very short clip for upload purposes. Contact me if you want longer files.

You probably can’t hear a big difference between these different file types…

Edith and the Kingpin.wav

Edith and the Kingpin AAC 320

Edith and the Kingpin AAC 256

Edith and the Kingpin MP3 192

Edith and the Kingpin MP3 128

But here is the data that was stripped away from each file. You’ll notice a big difference between the AAC 320kbps(better quality) and the MP3 128kbps(worst quality). The lower the quality, the more you hear in the result:

Edith and the Kingpin – Result AAC 320

Edith and the Kingpin – Result AAC 256

Edith and the Kingpin – Result MP3 192

Edith and the Kingpin – Result MP3 128

If you want to try this on your own you can do it in 3 quick steps: