Since the addition of sound to film about a century ago, there
have been some very creative people who have done some very amazing manipulation of sound. Wikipedia offers a very interesting
history of 'sound design' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_design) which refers all the way back to prehistoric times. As fascinating as that is, I don't think anyone in the film, TV,
or music communities was using the term 'Sound Designer' with its current meaning until the early 1980's.
It was
at that time that Warren Dewey, Bill Koepnick, and Joel Valentine were amongst the first five people to get their hands on
Emu's Emulator II ... the first sampling keyboard that had audio quality sufficient for use in professional audio and music.
I credit these guys as the creators of the art now known as Sound Design.
Through an interesting twist of
fate, Warren had engineered the album my band Serenade recorded for RCA, and his wife at the time, Molly Hansen, had once
hired me as a recording engineer at Salty Dog Recorders in Van Nuys. I had no idea they had met and married, and hadn't
seen either of them for a while. One night over dinner, Warren said that he was overloaded with animation and advertising
audio work, and asked Molly: 'Who do we know who is a keyboard player, a recording engineer, and can be trusted to work in
our home late at night while we're sleeping?' Molly suggested me, and Warren believed I had the chops ... so they hunted
me down. Fresh off a messy divorce, I was all too willing to dive in ... and I became (what I consider to be) the fourth
Sound Designer.
There were no sequencers (except for a primative one built into the E2). No digital worstations.
No Pro Tools or Performer or anything like that. We loaded sound banks from big floppy disks, then performed the sound
effects via the keyboard and recorded straight to 16-track tape synchronized to 3/4" video. That's right ... performed
live!
As time went on, Warren taught me a great deal about audio and sound effects for TV, advertising, and film.
We worked on shows like Gobots, Voltron, Transformers, the list goes on and on ... literally thousands of shows. I,
too, branched into advertising work, and we also had a long run producing music together for TV and radio commercials, mostly
national spots.
Soon I began taking an E2 to music sessions, where people were fascinated by its capabilities.
Everyone asked: 'What is this Sound Design? Is it just sound effects?' Word soon spread, and people began to admire
the art. Eventually, many people got on board ... and now there are thousands of people who call themselves Sound Designers.
Some are. Some aren't. It takes more than a Pro Tools rig to be an artist.
Speaking of Pro Tools ...
Warren and I met the Digidesign folks in the company's infancy. We beta-tested their software for them. We also
investigated all the DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) as they were being developed. We had an AMS Audiophile for a
while ... it crashed a bunch. We checked out Lexicon's Opus, and quite a few others. Warren went with New England
Digital's PostPro, which was expensive and tricky but quite powerful. Eventually, Pro Tools conquered the market ... and here
we are today ... all god's chillin' is Sound Designers!
On this page, I'm posting a few examples. Interestingly, sound designers don't often get copies of their work
to exhibit like this ... so I'm starting with just a few. I'll round up some others and post them soon. Also ...
I must admit that I've been focused on developing the music pages of Bravermania. Again ... I'll post more Sound Design
and advertising spots soon. ENJOY!
Dead To Rights
(NAMCO)
Gordon Hookailo of GDH digital (http://gdhdigital.com) hired me to do sound design / sound FX and Foley
for
the intro cinematic (FMV) for NAMCO's 'Dead To Rights' videogame.
As it happened, Gordon was scheduled to vacation in Fiji immediately following his mix,
so he asked me to be on call should anyone ask for any changes.
Well ... they did. So I wound up remixing this.
It was mostly Gordon's mix ...
I just lowered the FX a bit and boosted the music as they requested,
and a little tweak here & there.
Here are a few video clips of 'dream' sequences from
the MPSE Golden Reel Award winning Bionicle: Mask Of Light ...
I did the sound design/FX. These are unmixed, SFX only.
Click this pic to see
my Bionicle page!
Click this pic to see
my Bionicle page!
Click this pic to see
my Bionicle page!
The Batman
Emmy Winner * Sound Editing
Cat & Bat ... no music.
Tom & Jerry Blast Off To Mars
Cat & Mouse ... no music.
TSR Audiogames
(Samples coming soon!)
Terror Trax 'Track of the Vampire'
(TSR)
'First Quest'
(TSR)
'Karameikos'
(TSR)
'Red Steele: The Savage Coast'
(TSR)
Terror Trax 'Track of the Werewolf'
(TSR)
'Hail the Heroes'
(TSR)
'Ravenloft: A Light in the Belfry'
(TSR)
'Night of the Vampire'
(TSR)
'Glantri'
(TSR)
'Planescape'
(TSR)
'Mark of Amber'
(TSR)
'Red Steele: Savage Baronies'
(TSR)
Oh
yes ... Back in the days when videogames were almost exclusively in arcades, Gordon Hookailo (http://gdhdigital.com) hired me to work
on these 'Audio/CD Games' by Dungeons & Dragons manufacturor TSR. I handled the sound design/editing, and shared
the mixing duties with Gordon. He would mix the dialogue, then I would mix the music, then we'd both mix the FX.
I supervised, spotted and mixed the Foley, and on some of these I supervised the recording of the dialogue.
Most notable was Gordon's foresight regarding Pro Tools! These were done when PT was
in its infancy, and my AKAI DD1000 was far superior! The DD1000 was portable (PT was fragile and could barely be moved!)
and it did time expansion/compression far more gracefully than PT. Yet Gordon saw the future ... the inevitable connection
between audio post and the home computer. I give him props for that! He also had an 8-fader JL Cooper fader pack
... the first to interface with Pro Tools. We took turns doing our respective mixing duties. What a trip!
