| Millennial Modifications - The Interviews
- Edited interviews for an article published in Issue Nine of Surround Professional
- This series of interviews I had with the staff of Skywalker Scoring in September and October of 1999...
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- Leslie Ann Jones, Director of Music Recording and Scoring, was recently elected National Chairwoman of the NARAS. We talked on September 15th, 1999 at Skywalker's Tech Building, first in the skylit dining hall...
OM — "So, tell me about the refinements you've been working on..."
Leslie Ann Jones — "Its been a steady process over the last two and a half years to get the stage, and the control room in particular, to the point where we could do multichannel mixing for film and, on a parallel track, multichannel for music became much more popular. So, we've had the advantage of doing something for one segment of our clientele that has been really perfect for a whole other segment of our clientele, which is the multichannel music clients that we have.
"So, whether its the wiring that we've removed because it was unnecessary, cleaning up the overall signal path of the studio and the control room, installing a console that can do multichannel mixing at the push of a button without having to go through some of the horror stories of the dark ages, which people actually still go through (when) using multitrack busses and having to really add/induce a lot more noise into their mixing process by having to do it that way. So, all of that stuff; the grounding, the electrical things that we notice in the upgrading of the scoring stage and control room really have gotten us to the point where we can put out a much better product than we were before. The funny thing is, people have always been historically astounded by the product that they get from here because the room itself sounds so great. So, it's been interesting for us to be able take that to another level, and part of what's happened is digital recording has become so popular and sampling rates have gotten so much higher, that you almost need to do that kind of stuff because you start to hear everything, all the faults in your room whether its grounding, electrical..."
OM — "...minimizing the signal path, getting rid of that noise floor buildup..."
"Totally, totally. And I know some people that think that's voodoo, but its really not. You get into our room and you record a 90 piece orchestra or a solo pianist and the music dies down and you can hear a pin drop and, if there is a problem with your grounding or electrical or some mismatch between phantom microphone and a cable that you're using or a phantom mic and a preamp, that stuff you can really hear. Because we do a lot of high bit recording here, it really shows up. So, its been a two and a half year process...And almost at every improvement, its kind of like a black hole in some respects. Because, with every improvement in sonic ability, you notice the other problems that you've got. But we've been on this path now and people that were here before that were certainly pleased with the product that they got, are even happier now. Also, their method of recording might have improved and maybe they're coming in using higher sampling rates or different formats and they would have noticed it if we hadn't taken care of it."
OM — "I've noticed that, having a distribution format where someone in their home can now hear, in some cases better than what the recording studio environment can hear, means that people have to pay a lot more attention to their product. In the past, its always been, "Oh, what the heck, its a theater, its reverberant, you can't hear it." or "It's only their home, on a cassette or on an FM radio or on a CD..."
LAJ — "You can't say that anymore."
OM — "Exactly, you can't say that anymore. One of the things I've found to be the most interesting about doing DSD work and 176.4 work, the phase response is so good now that you can hear really wonderful phantom imaging. And, you can hear that at home. That kind of stuff is just astounding.
LAJ — "Yeah."
OM — "So, unless the engineer doesn't care, all that stuff is lost in the good, ol' fashioned mushy sort of amorphous thing that you get on a CD."
LAJ — "Yeah. There was somebody that said last night that they didn't think that the consumer would really care whether it was 96/24 or 48/20 or..."
OM — "Whatever..."
LAJ — "But, I think they do care, they just don't know it. They care on a very visceral, emotional level..."
OM — "Its almost subconscious."
LAJ — "It really is. First of all, they'll never have the opportunity to A/B it, not like we do in our profession, where we sit here, trying out amplifiers, different cables, different microphones, different converters, not just ‘cause we're always in the market for what's the best, but really...
OM — "...trying to get it right."
LAJ — "Yeah, we are! And consumers don't have the luxury of doing that. But I think, on an emotional level, they'll be able to tell when they get a great product and they might not know why."
...we move from the dining area, where noisy lunch prep is starting, to the control room of the scoring stage...
LAJ — "So, where were we?"
OM — "Talking about how you have to constantly improve to, a, make your clients happy and b, make yourselves happy..."
LAJ — "Sometimes for us, it's self serving. We put in an AES router, (we) really did it to make our setups of sessions easier because, when you deal with different formats all the time, sometimes multiple formats on the same project where you're feeding Pro Tools and a Genex and DA-88s and you're bit splitting and doing all this stuff, apart from having cables all over the place, you want to make sure that the signal gets to where it goes the right way..."
OM — "...Without clocking problems..."
LAJ — "...Without clocking problems. We do spend a lot of time doing that. Aaron [Reiff, staff engineer for scoring]...he'll take converters on his bench and measure jitter and try and figure out what really is the best clock to use so that we can say to our clients, ‘This is what we found to be the best, this is what you need to use.' So, we put in the [Z–Systems] AES router and its been great. Not only does it make our lives easier because we can do setups to multiple formats in much less time (but) I think its made the client's product better because we're able to move signal around easier and better with less clocking problems."
OM — "You said the ‘J' word...I'm curious, how do you guys deal with jitter?...People don't realize the degradation that results from jittery sources, and I have to say that a lot of products like Pro Tools are horribly jittery."
LAJ — "In most cases, we're at the mercy of clients, in terms of the formats that they bring in, particularly for scoring where it usually is going to end up on Pro Tools at some point. The music might come in on Sonic but usually the other editing's done on Pro Tools. But, for our multichannel music clients, we just try and stick with devices that have low jitter like the Pacific Microsonics Model One. For instance, we're doing a project at the end of this month where we'll be using three of those going to a Genex. So, we try and do that as much as we can but, in some cases, it really is client driven. You try and make suggestions if you can. Some times its difficult because you don't want to make the client feel like they're walking in with a bad piece of gear. But, we've been doing this for a long time, working with a lot of different clients. And, in some ways, people expect us to deliver that kind of product, they expect us to know that kind of stuff. So, it's not like we're coming off as, ‘Oh, this is Skywalker Sound and we know everything about it.' But I think the fact that we're very interested and can engage people in conversation, people really like that. So, that's really about all you can do."
OM — "You're expected to be picky."
LAJ — "Yes, and so, damn it, we are! (laughs) We won't let people down in that aspect."
OM — "...You told me earlier that you got a new desk?"
LAJ — "Yes, two and a half years ago, we put in a Neve, its call a VXS [72 input with NEVE/Martinsound Flying Faders] and its got an eight wide buss panel [VSP 8x8 Film Monitor section] so we can mix up to eight speakers wide and do various combinations of that. It was, of course, primarily for film but now it gets used for multichannel music as well. Its nice because you can switch in and out of stereo so you can go from multichannel audio back to stereo and you can do mixes simultaneously if you want."
OM — "And you've found that, for your multichannel music work, do you do the (stereo and multichannel) mixes in parallel or serially?"
LAJ — "Well, it depends. Our classical clients that have been doing it recently have been working in parallel, where they will be printing a stereo mix at the same time as a five channel mix but those are projects that are not being remixed, those are going live to those formats. Whereas, the traditional way of recording to multitrack and then remixing, generally those will be done either two channel first and then five channel or the opposite. But usually not at the same time. Although this desk can do it — it does have a fold down on the desk — most people like to kind of futz around with it a little more, tailor it. Although it works fine for film mixing, to be able to do that at the same time. You're not dealing with discreet elements like you are with multichannel music mixing. With film mixing, you have to worry about how much of your ambient surrounds are going to be folded back into the center mix and whether you're going to use the sub or not. But, with multichannel music mixing, you have more choices than that."
OM — "What else has changed in the control room?"
LAJ — "The whole patch bay is new. The minute we put in an eight wide post panel, we had to triple the size of the patch bay. Before that, everything was just two channel and now, of course, everything is 8 channel. So, its really multiplied the number of patch points that we have to have. It always reminds me of the monolith at the end of 2001. But anyway, that's that!
We rebuilt the three EMT plates here that were hardly used. So, we upgraded them..."
OM — "...Tube or solid state?"
LAJ — "They're solid state. We put the remotes in for those...bought a third Wilson [Watt 5/Puppy], because a lot of our scoring clients and our classical clients like the Wilsons. So now we can do LCR with the Wilsons. And, we put in new surround speakers, M & K ambient surrounds with a Parasound [HCA-1206] six channel amp. That's kind of where the ‘hi–fi' thing with us tends to overlap...and we tend to look as much in that area for the kind of stuff we want as do in the regular pro audio area. Pro audio amplifiers, they're looking for lot of power for the money and something that's indestructible...We're not really looking for that as much, although we do want something that going to last, something that's really sounds good...Levinson [#23] power amps for our stereo."
OM — "What do you use for stereo monitoring?
LAJ — "Usually, whatever the client brings in. Its pretty client driven. We have B & W 801s for classical clients...I use an 8" speaker [PBM 8] by Tannoy that's (self) powered by a Limpet amp. I have five of those for when I do surround. But other people, for multichannel music mixing, will bring in Genelecs or..."
OM — "Whatever they're happy with..."
LAJ — "Yeah, a project we're doing at the end of the month is going to be with the Meyer HD-1s...There's quite a bit of hi–fi component to it, more so than I'm familiar with in other studios I've been in."
OM — "...‘Ooo, its consumer, we can't go there.' But hopefully, that'll change. I think that, if its a well made product and it sounds good and does what you need, who care where it comes from. I have seen a lot more high end hi–fi stuff show up in our world, which is great."
LAJ — "That tends to be what's driving the market, the DVD market...and the pro audio market, in that respect, has been slow to catch up...
"You know, you were talking earlier about educating the client. We actually have a pretty astute clientele for the most part. Very knowledgeable in their own right about experiences with converters and things like that. So, its a real exchange, especially with clients that have come back two or three times...‘What have you found, have you tried this?' They're always very nice about being a part of our ever present need to tweak stuff (laughs), constantly!"
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On October 13th, 1999, I talked with Aaron Reiff, scoring engineer in the Scoring Stage's control room...
Aaron Reiff — "I'm installing a new power and grounding system in scoring. The reason I did it is...we have a lot of clientele that are into high resolution recording, 96/24 record. We started looking at different technologies like special cables. We use MIT cables (who) lent us some power conditioners. I was amazed that we were able to hear a difference in the audio based on power conditioning. I realized that no one was optimizing the environment around this new (high resolution) technology...I went to balanced power and custom spec'd a transformer from Square D that has a very high K factor and specified the way it was constructed to cut down on harmonics (on the AC lines). Once we installed it, I was definitely able to hear a difference in the audio. You're not hearing as much high frequency hash (from the switching supplies).
"Also, steering the power factor {by adding capacitance to the transformer] is very powerful. It definitely changes the character of your audio gear. I found that slightly inductive is the way to go, a power factor of about 0.9 sounds really good...(I) found a middle ground that everyone seemed to like."
"After I did the balanced power, I started doing research on grounding. I found these ground rods that NASA uses, they're called electrolytic ground rods. The difference is; with a normal copper rod, you've got maybe 15 ohms of resistance between the ground rod and earth. Several (bonded) stakes gets you down around 10 ohms. But, with this technology, you can get below an ohm of resistance to earth, which is almost nothing. How it works is; there are weep holes drilled in the bottom of a big tube and the tube is filled with calcium chloride and sodium chloride. Moisture in the air and creates a drip system, releasing electrolytes into the earth [to keep conductivity high around the stake]. I saw this and was excited, especially for audio since, with digital technology, you've got a lot of high frequency noise on the ground plane." [So, with 10 ohms of DC resistance using a normal rod, the impedance is very high.]
Along with the electrolytic ground rods, he's created a grid of custom fabricated ground braid made of nickel to reduce the corrosion that copper is prone to and the subsequent loss of conductivity.
On AC cables; "I find that, with most of the AC cabling, it really depends on the specific device. Some sound good with a shielded cable, some sound better with an unshielded cable. That, of course, depends on their power supply and chassis grounding. Some devices benefit heavily from (a replacement AC cord) and some sound worse! In terms of testing, mostly what I end up doing is trying different things and listening. I find that the ears are the best test equipment though I do get very scientific with stuff. I really like quantifying with test equipment to say, ‘Yes, I hear this and I see it too.' Then there's yet another order with what MIT does and that's put in filtering. I think the filtering does help in most applications. His filter networks are operating, not around the 60 Hz or audio spectrum, but from 50 k on up to RF. It definitely makes a difference. I'm going to go through each piece of gear and see what AC cord it likes the best. I'll change things, look at the test equipment and listen, going round and round...That's what I really love about MIT's technology; instead of just ordering a (ready made) cable, I can look at the schematic, do complex impedance analysis, print out those charts and graphs, fax them to Bruce (owner of MIT) and he can make a cable specific to that application."
In some cases. I'll have to go in the units and modify them. In this environment, its so critical that I can't afford (to leave them stock). I'll replace components, put in shielding or Mu metal around. That can get rid of quite a lot of noise. It's worth it in the end."
On clocking; "An NVision feeds a Pro–Bel system a) referenced to video b) distributed to the stage via BNC patch."
On networking; "We have both Fiber Channel and Ethernet throughout the building. There are terabyte servers in the basement but, here in scoring, it's easier for me to hand the client a storage format that I've instantly backed up to an Orb or something. Here in scoring, we do utilized the network when we need to but its not a heavy part of what we do. In the rest of the building, they really rely on the servers for everything...all of the sound effects are on servers, all the audio gets backed up to servers. They're delivering from and recorded to (Tascam) MMR-8, so that material that gets recorded every day needs to get backed up to the server. Editors can pull it off the server and edit it or go get the hard drive and put it in their system...the network is heavily used, we also deliver digital video as well. That makes it really handy to have the video on the server because then any editor can decide he's going to edit reel 5 and, boom, he can just have it instantly rather than dealing with tapes. It really makes it easier for us. As soon as the projects come in, the video's digitized and put on the server. "
It requires a lot of management. We have several terabytes in the basement and still, we end up having to do a lot of data management. We have a robot that backs up to DLT as well but, the thing about it is that you can run out of room! So, if a project comes back in and we've wiped it off the server, to restore it off the DLT isn't a 5 minute process, its several hours. If we wipe it off too soon, the client comes back in and says ‘I want to punch in on reel 5...'"
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