We had a great time returning to Comic Con again this year! We kicked off with the empowering Cartoon Creatives: Women Power in Animation panel, a discussion showcasing talented women and their experiences in animation. On Friday we were excited to see our work showcased at The TMNT Return to New York Panel and the Disney XD Penn Zero: Part Time Hero and The 7D panel. The creators of Future Worm and Pickle and Peanut kept us laughing all day long on Saturday with their antics, and we wrapped up the show with the first ever Boom Box Post Comic Con TweetUp. Thanks to everyone who came out to all of the exciting events this year! Enjoy some of these fun photos we took, and we look forward to seeing you all at Comic Con 2017!
Elastic audio. The myth, the hidden tool and treasure.
Looking at the various jobs in the business of Post Production sound, re-recording mixing seems to carry an air of mystique. It’s an intimidating task, even for an experienced sound editor, to make the jump to the console. There seems to be so much that can go wrong. So many small factors that need to be accounted for simply to make the gear work. It’s true, there are hundreds of details to be aware of, but with some basic tips we can pull back the curtain on some of the more daunting technical aspects, allowing you to put aside trepidation and make the gear work for you.
Unfiltered Audio’s newest plugin, Fault, has just been released, and it comes with high expectations. Plugin Alliance’s website (where you can download a full functional 14-day trial version or purchase the plugin outright) boasts Fault as a “new kind of effect,” a “pitch/mod tool [that] soothes the savage sound,” and the creator of “spectral modulation mayhem.” But what do those catchy phrases really mean? I dug into the new plugin to find out.
This week we challenged the team to create Sonic Branding Stings. These short clips are designed to create a fun and interesting sonic brand to help identify and showcase the company.
When it comes to vocal processing either for music or post production, engineers and producers have always needed an accessible way of augmenting their vocal tracks. iZotope’s VocalSynth ($199) is the new plugin that combines all the classic vocal sounds of the 80s and 90s. Whether you are trying to have your vocalist sound like Daft Punk, Michael Jackson, Imogen Heap, or T-Pain, or if you want to sound like an alien robot from Planet X, now you can. VocalSynth gives you the tools to do just that.
To help with our continually growing and evolving business, we have had the pleasure of bringing on a new team member: Assistant Editor & Office Manager, Jacob Cook. Jacob's smiling face will now be the first thing that you see when you enter our doors, and we are exciting to add someone with such joyful enthusiasm for sound to our crew.
As a recent graduate of Cal Poly Pomona's Bachelor of Arts in Music with an emphasis in music industry studies, he comes to us with a great base knowledge of recording techniques and a true passion for post-production sound. He shares this passion on a bi-weekly basis through his own personal sound blog, which you can follow here.
When my business partner, Jeff Shiffman, and I first conceived of Boom Box Post, we had one main goal: to integrate creativity into our overall business approach. We’ve seen other “creative” workspaces that have ping pong tables, communal lounge areas, and even designated nap rooms. But none of those things help with the question of being creative under time constraints. If anything, spending your time playing ping pong to “loosen up ideas” has the opposite effect. You may come up with something new, but then you also may be too behind on your workload to actually implement it.
Here are the five steps we took to create an environment conducive to allowing our editors to be creative in a time crunch:
This past weekend I traveled to a fascinating location I’d been reading about for several months, the Salton Sea, CA. The area is ripe with images of urban decay, isolation and surprisingly, tranquility. My goal was to capture some of these characteristics with sound.
As you might have read in our previous blog post How Do Ears Work?, our brains use our ears to derive sounds from detected frequencies. These frequencies are natural occurring vibrations that enter our ears where they are then processed into what we perceive as sounds. But what exactly are these frequencies? And how do they work?
We recently discovered the wonders of SLACK here at Boom Box Post. On the surface, Slack seems like a basic messaging platform, not much to dig into. However, once we did dig in, we realized the potential power of such a streamlined platform. Slack's tagline is "Be Less Busy." And that's the real draw here. Finding ways to communicate better and faster can be such a time saver. Here's how we at Boom Box Post utilize Slack to its fullest in our Post Production workflow.
One of the major hurdles of becoming a sound effects editor is learning your library. This means knowing what keywords to search in a given situation as well as building up a mental catalogue of "go-to" sounds.
While it is always a good idea to start by looking at the picture and then thinking of descriptive words to search, it helps if you know which words will yield the best results. This is where onomatopoeia enters the scene. Onomatopoeia is defined as the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle). Following is a beginner's guide to onomatopoeic sound effects search words. Some of these terms can be found in any dictionary, and some are unique to sound effect library naming conventions.
With three nominations, we were very excited to attend the Daytime Emmy Awards this past Friday evening. The event was massive and the team had such a great time celebrating together. Adding to the fun, we brought home the gold with our first Emmy win for Outstanding Sound Mixing - Animation for Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
A huge congratulations to DJ Lynch and Jeff Shiffman from Boom Box Post as well as our fellow honorees, the fantastic dialogue mixing team of Justin Brinsfield, Matt Corey and Manny Grijalva from Nickelodeon. We are so thrilled to play our part in this amazing series and couldn't be happier than to grab a win for TMNT!
This week I challenged the team to create their own audio "Rube Goldberg" machines. If you aren't familiar with the concept, a Rube Goldberg machine is
"...a contraption, invention, device or apparatus that is deliberately over-engineered to perform a simple task in a complicated fashion, generally including a chain reaction. The expression is named after American Cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg"
Thanks Wikipedia! In addition to imagining and executing their sequence of events with sound, I also asked that everyone give me a visual representation to include in this post. Granted, we are all audio people for a reason. That said, I'm really impressed with all the work here BOTH audio and visual. I hope you enjoy these fantastic Boom Box Post Rube Goldberg machines!
There’s nothing worse than having your show fail quality control due to a tiny tick in the dialog. What a silly thing to reject an entire episode for! But sadly, it happens. And once the QC operator finds one tick, suddenly they are hearing ticks and clicks everywhere in your mix. Fortunately we now have tools to easily pre-empt such rejections before they even have a chance. Just combine iZotope RX and some AudioSuite handles and you’re good to go!
Working in post audio has been an excuse to purchase all kinds of audio toys. As one of my good friends once observed, I seem to suffer from G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). I've spent years building up an arsenal of tools to add to my creative routine, pining over the latest and greatest software, synthesizer or control interface. That said, as I grow older and more patient, I have narrowed my focus.
Which brings me to the Avid Artist Control. It had been a while since I invested in something new and frankly, I was feeling some gear-based FOMO. So I researched like crazy (a big part of the fun for me) and decided to go for it. As it turns out, this little piece of gear packs a huge punch in my day to day workflow. Here's how I've customized this beauty to utilize it's very deep skill set.
We've all been there: all year long, we pine for a vacation and some time to ourselves. But then when an unsolicited break from work arrives, we spend the entire time stressing about all the work we're not doing, or about whether or not a new project will come along, and we forget to enjoy it. Furthermore, when we start back again, it's as if we have forgotten how to do our jobs.
After eleven years in the business of seasonal sound work, I've developed some skills as to how to take a break from work and come back fresh (instead of reeling to catch up). I'd love to share them with you:
We get questions all the time about breaking into the industry. Some of the best tips come from our editors themselves and their interesting stories. With a background in film, sound and music, sound editor Brad Meyer joined the team back in October of 2015. His work for Boom Box Post has since garnered nominations for both a MPSE Golden Reel and Daytime Emmy. Here's a chance to get to know Brad and how his particular background lead to our doorstep.
We are thrilled to be a part of this year's Daytime Emmy celebration with three nominations for Boom Box Post!
We received a nod for our work on Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the category of Outstanding Sound Mixing - Animation, as well as a nomination each for TMNT and Half Shell Heroes in the category of Outstanding Sound Editing - Animation.
A few weeks ago, we wrote a blog post about how the human ear works, and that inspired me to dive deeper into the section about the brain; specifically, psychoacoustics. The study of psychoacoustics, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “a branch of science dealing with the perception of sound, and the sensations produced by sounds.” Essentially, psychoacoustics is how your brain perceives sound, and if used correctly, it can be an incredibly powerful tool in a sound designer’s arsenal.
