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Rupert's Rants

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2 Guys walk into a theme tune

Started writing this a while back then as usual got way too busy to post, but as Silverstone Classic races towards us I thought I should finish this little write up and get it up there ;-)

Today I find myself confessing once again to my inability to not pull out all the stops on anything we get involved in. It’s like that saying " how many motorbikes are enough ? " Answer . . . " one more ". After a very enjoyable day at Silverstone’s media day for the warm up to this, the 25th Anniversary of The Silverstone Classic, I sat down to edit a few little prequels together for Gun Hill Studios the visual arm of our groovy not so evil empire. Yes folks we have a visual arm and an audio arm keeping our ears free to listen and our eyes free to look but making carrying things a little awkward at times. You will tell me when I deviate won’t you? They tell me to stay to the path but there are sparkly things in the less trodden.

So I’m thinking I’ll just spend an afternoon going through my footage and make a little minute and a half prequel of a selection of the vehicles. Why do I even try and kid myself it’s ever going to be that simple? Slowly I’m seduced by the different tones of the vehicles roaring past my camera and as the edit starts to assemble itself the sonic dictates an underscore for the exhausts to dance upon. Time to strap on a guitar and delve into the subconscious and see what's there. Kinda wants to be a simple hook that doesn't detract from picture or the sound of these engines. 

Cut to a couple of hours later and I have a little theme to cut picture to and back to Final Cut Pro for some more editing. The plan was to divide the footage into a few little tasters ahead of the Silverstone Classic to whet the appetite of all concerned. For the main event we will be doing stills, motion and interviews in our humble attempt to get the whole vibe in the can. Anyway, so there I sat editing and as the 4k footage comes into focus the thought crossed my mind “ who can I get on drums to give this the drive it needs? ” excuse the pun. Well a few weeks back we were recording Robin Guy for Corin Hardy’s film The Hallow and he had some serious welly so a few texts later he’s booked. I start off thinking I’ll just set up four mics and keep it simple. Then as usual my brain goes into "why do things by halves?" Ok ribbon room mics, condenser over heads, top and bottom snare, 1176 compressors on the room mics, Avalon 737 on the Kick blah blah blah. It’s a minute and a half track for jellies sake ha ha. Protools or Logic? Always a tough call on this occasion I’ll go with Logic because I’d written the theme in that and it saves me the stem journey to tools. Anyway I’m trying to balance the right level of geekness in this little blog, not sure of my audience and trying to keep everyone awake. So drums down and a few extra takes for different vibes. Maybe I’ll expand the theme later ;-) Tracks sounding so much better now it has some real muscle to it. Ok so that should do right?

The following monday I’m working with Guy Pratt, bass player extraordinaire. “Hey Guy, mind playing a little bass on my Silverstone track?” “Sure, if you can get Amazon Prime working on my telly” “I’m a trumpet player not I.T. oh ok then" Ok so track’s really coming together now and making the edit far more fluid. I’m following the pitch of some of the highly tuned engines with my guitar but always letting the engines lead. Couple of days later I’m in Paul Carrack’s studio with Peter Van Hooke putting down some percussion. “Hey Pete, I’m doing this Silverstone track could you pop a little percussion on it?” he he job done ;-) Ok a little bit of trumpet horn section doubling up the lead guitar. I record all this stuff then put it at a level where the cars still take glorious precedence. Guys walk into a theme tune, why the long edit? Well when you think of the blood, sweat, tears and passion that has been put into the vehicles that race at Silverstone, it’s only respectful to take the same care when humbly trying to represent them.

Anyway here’s the video I’ll try and get another one up prior to Silverstone but we are stupidly busy.

Did I mention we are building a new bigger infinity cove with dual turntables but that’s another blog for another day. Thanks again to Guy Pratt, Robin Guy and Peter Van Hooke for bringing their own edge to the proceedings. 

See you all at Silverstone ;-)

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Railslack

Being wound up by Britains embarrassing rail service. It's like we are all masochists being charged extra to be treated like s@@t Whilst being constantly warned over tannoys that any retaliation will not be tolerated. Are we living in a Terry Gillian film ?

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Rode at The UK PhotoShow

Had a great chat with RODE re their bold view of the importance of audio in film. They were claiming the Michael Moore statement that, "sound was more important than picture" I think to stir things up a bit. I have enough trouble claiming its as important so good luck with that. Sound is often over looked though I totally get that but I would argue that when both sound and picture are equally respected, only then can the results be truly stunning. We have eyes and ears lets use all our senses. Hey what about smell ? ;-)  Also gotta sneak preview of the RODELink Filmmaker Kit, the first radio mic product from Rode, which is now top of our shopping list. I can see, and more importantly hear, many uses for RODELink not only when we are on location for the Audio and Visual industry but also in our large ambient Infinity Cove. The acoustics there, whilst lending themselves to recording Bond Like brass as we have done for Vertigo Films or the drums of Gary Husband, sometimes need taming when interviewing Actors after a long shoot or up and coming music sensations for their EPK. I often use shot guns or lavaliere mics for this but the RODELink seems like a simple solution thats going to bring good quality audio field recording into a lot of peoples budgets.Check out the video below. OK so its Youtube sound and theres also a fair amount of background noise but hey! we were at a convention with thousands of people and a lot of competing presentations and background noise. The RODELink actually costs less than the hire of some kit that doesn’t come close to this performance ;-) In my humble opinion of course ;-) http://youtu.be/HSjJNeFFzE8

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life version 3.24

we are stuck in a loop of time. I spend a great deal of it turning off new features on my mac that have appeared in an update I didn't want. " So don't update" I hear you smug. Well thats not an option either anymore as, if you don't jump on the train of swopping one bug for another, in the blink of an eye the fundamental features that you bought the machine for in the first place stop being supported. So on we go switching off drop down menus that interrupt our thought and work flow, looking for features that have actually gone because someone in a far of land decided they were either redundant or not cool enough. Have a good day people I'm off to play my trumpet version 1

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Converting Codecs for FCP

i seem to have finally found a fast efficient program for converting all the different codecs required on a gig or in the studio when filming. i have tried many alternatives and I don’t wanna get into name calling of the backwards indenile out of sync head banging packages that are out there waiting to take your money. He He doctor’s told me not to rant it’s not good for me ;-) Anyway back to the point in hand. Just had great success converting a sea of different raw files from Canon to Panasonic all into prores from one folder using EditReady on a mac. Simple elegant and with just the right amount of user controls. So my work flow is out of the camera onto drive back up then rename using A Better Finder Rename 8 to add the creation time ,date and camera operator to the beginning of each file.  This minimalists the chances of duplicate files greatly, as many camera’s tend to, in a very short time, start naming the files the same again. Do make sure the time and date on your camera is set correctly though. Then BACK UP again. Once you have watched the files that are backed up you may clear the cards ( clear rather than format, as this will give you a greater chance of recovering the files when you realise you only dreamt you watched and backed them up after a 16 hour shoot and a four hour drive to return the equipment to the hire company that closed early with a note on the door saying back in ten minutes. Tomorrow is not just a day away its a day and ten minutes ;-) I digress, they told me to stick to the path anyway back to work. We are currently making a road movie of Paul Carrack on tour using a variety of Cameras including Go pro’s, Panasonic 4k H1000 and a variety of Canon SLRs. EditReady converts them all seamlessly and you can even set up two batches one for Proxi and one for HQ what more could you ask for. We are also filming Paul in the studio with Nick Lowe and Andy Fairweather Low. So you can see how the workflow and data basing of the gigs and studio time is paramount not to mention backing up. Beep Beep Beep not that kind of backing up. There's only one heads up be aware that EditReady 1.2 only works on 10.8 or higher which is a shame as I know many industry professionals that wont budge from 10.68 ;-(

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After being disaponted on every level with my gopro 4 it's time to admit defeat and look at a more reliable competitor. After owning 2 gopro 2s I feel like one of them berks who has brand loyalty to a car company that never delivers a reliable vehicle but rather than admitting the error of the first purchase keeps upgrading thinking better the devil I know. Better the devil I know doesn't work. There are whole threads dedicated to people looking at alternatives but as usual manufacturers continue to use the public as beta testers raving about there successes and blaiming failures on user error. Welcome to the real world , would you like to take a seat ? Sorry about the scaffold I'm afraid it's not complete gopro4

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Last Weekend with John Mclaughlin and Gary Husband

Great weekend with Gary Husband and John McLaughlin recording Gary's keys for a new 4th Dimension album i think.  We used 2 Presonus Firestudio Mobiles one for playback and one for recording. Gary played from his stage rig which is a Presonus Firestudio Mobile running Kontakt 5. Gary and I set up his stage set up a while back, so that he has two multi  instances of Kontakt giving the ability to  layer sounds and fade layers in and out with his foot pedals live at will. Bank one would have the primary sound whilst bank two could be added with the foot pedal at will. For the recording he played this rig and also his Nord lead into the second Presonus which was running protools 10hd Native. 

John runs protools hd 8 at his studio, so I figured the most portable way to work was to record in my laptop, in 10 and then export the sessions as tools 8. Yes folks one of the key things that tools does over some over manufacturers is respects the need for backwards compatibility.

In other news I keep getting interrupted by one of my clients calling me from the pocket. Im guessing I must have been the last number dialled. “hello hello” I say but I think he’s use to having tiny people in his pocket and thinks I’ve just come to visit them. Anyway back to the topic in hand. . . . 

I also brought along one of my Presonus Control Stations to route everything to Gary’s speakers, figuring that there may be a few other devices we needed to hook up for review purposes.It all seemed to work very smoothly. John would auditioning some of his ideas from his laptop. Then i’d open the sessions on mine adding tracks for lead lines and what ever the chaps required. I created an auxiliary reverb so we could record dry whilst Gary still had a sprinkling of ambience for vibe. 

Gary’s imaginative stamina, producing solo after solo and lead lines of invention and clarity that complimented Johns Lyrical guitar style perfectly, made for an intense but highly enjoyable weekend. And if you can get through that sentence in one breath your a better man than me. Actually Im a beta man and probably need an upgrade.

Another call . . . .Now his trousers want to FaceTime me, the miracles of modern technology. 

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No Pro 4

So today I,m making my final attempt to sort out my go pro 4, after breaking my own rule of never being an early adopter of far from finished buggy products. Yes folks I was one of the first to buy a GoPro4, needing it for a video shoot for Hesketh Motorcycles. The main feature I was after was the 120 frames.Ok issue one was how short the battery was in this mode, but I kinda understood that and as there seemed to be no spare batteries available for a month I bought the battery pack from the site which claimed over night delivery. To cut to the chase what they actually meant was over night deliver from once the Visa had cleared and by cleared they meant some convoluted means of money transfer as every other supplier I know pretty much delivers Visa paid goods immediately. To cut a long story short over night delivery turned into 2 weeks totally missing the shoot and the reason I bought it.Issue 2 Go Pro Studio now only works post 10.8 which is daft as I know whole companies that refuse to budge from 10.6.8 due to other software issues post this OS that I won’t bore you with here. The people that know know and the people that don’t don’t need to and the rest of the world are in denile starring at cool things or sleeping outside the apple store waiting for the next cool thing.Issue 3 the Gopro Studio refuses to see the GoPro4 on any OS it sees my 2 go pro 2’s fine and there backs but nothing can make it see the 4. Ive tried clean boots etcI have a dual boot mac so I can carry on being cool on one boot, whilst getting on with work on the other.Issue 4 so lets move on months and onto a new year Whats with this bluetooth boogie? Im still having trouble getting my head around why this is a must rather than an option.Anyway my go pro 4 won’t pair with anything. I've tried a number of devices and a number of OSs. And let's put this into perspective I've been working with computers since my VIC 20 I'm hardly what you would call a novice. Bitter yes novice no :-) I've beta tested for many major companies and yes I've tried turning it off and on. I've tried updating everything despite the site expecting me to type the serial number and re register the device every time I break wind. When you login and click on support you are given the option to login or fill in the form you filled In when you registered or login and when you login in..... Well I'm guessing if you are still reading you get the pattern. So here I stand after installing the latest firmware on the Hero 4 and the latest Apps on everything, with still no way of reliably using it. Bluetooth still won’t pair and my eye sight three stories up on rigging in a theatre in pitch black is kinda not up to seeing the point 1 font on the tiny display built for the BorrowersWhen it works, it shoots good footage but as I have no way of previewing camera angles and I work at the sharp end of the industry it will be going back in its box, but hey it doesn’t half look cool and people with working ones are shooting some brilliant stuff.So here I go filling in yet another form writing out the ever so tiny serial number from inside the battery case yet again, whist knowing i will be doing this again on another day when enough time has passed for me to think maybe this time maybe this time this will work. Or maybe Ill just go and play the trumpet Heck if the time Id spent on this I’d spent practicing I could be quite good by now ;-)This is the price of buying, what Im guessing is a Beta that no amount of updates are going to fixTomorrow Im shooting in Manchester at the Lowry on Panasonic and Canon I might risk my Gorpo 2’s but as the wifi backs on them turn them selves on and run down Im not sure I can be bothered. The GoPro4 is staying in my studio to watch some daytime TV and maybe order a pizza

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Sheffield with Paul Carrack

A Good night last night filming Paul Carrack in his home town of Sheffield to a packed house. "A good day last night "? man does that even make sense ? Fantastic building but a labyrinth of passages to try and navigate to maximise the coverage. Mike McKenzie @drumcamfilms was on stage camera duties. whilst I ran around like a mad man trying to cover everything else. We are trying to grab an overal vibe of the band on the road this time so i’m filming the set up rehearsals and backstage stuff too. Each gig is multitrack recorded so we have some groovy audio to cut to too. Still having gopro hell with my gopro 4 which seems to have a mind of its on. At a total loss as to the benifits of needing to par in a bluetooth styley rather than just type in a password on a new device to access it. When it works its great but the stress when it doesnt totally outways the times when it does. Mike took the shots from the side of the stage whilst I covered the long shots from the top of the auditorium then raced down the front for the finale. Filmed the after party and then a little sleep before the horrendous journey back to sussex but thats another story  . . . 

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The Hallow Shoot

so here we go the first thing to chat about is the session we did a couple of weeks back for the feature film " The Hallow " This stuff will from time to time get a tad geeky as the aim is to share the nuts and bolts of what we are up to. Having already helped with the pick up shots at gunhillstudios a few weeks previously when an audio session was required re percussion and drums Corin Hardy called on us again. Having consumed a few ales in the Six Bells after the previous session we were totallly onboard with what he required and as always the inevitable deadline. James Gosling the composer was working in Logic 9 and due to time restraints we decided to also record in Logic 9. We are comfortable in many DAW's so this was not a problem and not going to our protools HD system on this occasion significantly sped up the process. When not using Protools I often reach for one of my Presonus interfaces for the flexability and sound. 

He He this the current chaotic hub in studio A I really must have a rewiring session soon

on this occasion i reached for the Presonus Firestudio with its 8 mic pres and extensive input options. I routed other interfaces into it via the adat ports to bring up the track count to 24. I used inputs 1 and 2 for my overheads so that I could also take advantage of the sends on the back of these channels on the presonus sending them to my U2.1176 compressing the hell out of them and bringing them back in on another couple of channels. Giving me pre and post compressor in channels within my arrangement.

The session consisted of recording Robin Guy under the direction of the film director Corin Hardy.

We had a lot of cues to get through and wanted to give as many options as possible to Corin and James so Robin was in for a full on day 

As the session developed we decided to layer lots of the drums with percussion including Robin's super groovy Cajon. Ok I know its a tad mental sticking a Brauner in front of a Cajon but we are doing film score and i wanted the full range and dynamics of the beast and there is very little to touch the Brauner for dynamic range ;-) Oh and a little heads up to the cajon manufacturers @Lion-Cajon-Drums

Oh and all my DAW's get routed to the monitors through the Presonus Central Station which also helps with the solo in place duties so I can check stuff without interrupting Robin's vibe.

Right dinner Calls so there ends part one. Juggling so many things at the mo I always forget to eat

#thehallow @robinguy @sabian_uk @Lion-Cajon-Drums @PreSonus +presonus

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Welcome from Logictoolbox

well looks like Im finally gonna get around to the time vacuum which is blogging. Going to put my little software and hardware rants here as well as what we are up to at the various studios we work at and the artists we work with. I will try and keep it fairly regular but when choosing between doing and posting Im liable to favor doing ;-) The next post will be a little about. Oh I have to warn you you may have to read somethings twice because typing is not my strong suit nor is english. Im best with a trumpet in my hand. You will also find that we often change tense this could be due to the many people in my head. When they make up there mind it will all become clearer. I know they are planning a hostile take over i hear them plotting but what can i do I am one and the people in my head are legion ;-)