Rosen Audio

A blog run by independent artists' about music, audio, and sound design for visual media. Like Rosen Audio? There's a button for it.

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scribble.audio

Draw loops of sound with this web synthesizer.

http://scribble.audio/

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Super cool!

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It was bound to happen: Pixar vs. Spoon vs. Tycho (by David Kantrowitz on Vimeo)

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Song of the Week - Ends of the Earth, by Lord Huron

It’s warm outside, with an air of anxiety, productiveness, and hopefulness permuating my mental space. Ends of the Earth fitted my mood perfectly for this, with their folky roots and upbeat rhythm keeping me invigorated and feeling creative without getting distracted as I work and write. 

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Top 3 Music Composers for Film

1) John Williams

This was obvious, wasn’t it? Not only is John Williams the man behind the music for Star Wars, but he also did Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T., “Home Alone” Jurassic Park” and “Superman”. That’s pretty impressive.

2)  Danny Elfman  

Danny Elfman is a great composer. Why? Because he is the creator of the Simpsons theme song! But that’s not even the biggest reason. Since he is pretty much hired full time by Tim Burton to compose in his films, he’s had a lot of his score in some amazing movies. My first memory of his work was from Nightmare Before Christmas, where he actually wrote the lyrics for the song This Is Halloween

3) Hans Zimmer

Did you know that he composed the score for The Lion King (1994)? The man who worked on action movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Night, Inception, Interstellar —and so darn many more. His big, dramatic orchestral compositions are a trademark of his, and definitely helps make movies become bigger than life with his scores. He is currently planning to work on the main theme for Nat Geo’s ‘Saint’s & Strangers’ TV show.

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Opinion piece: Jambox Mini

(Source: Designboom.com)

I never think about it, but I bring my Jambox mini almost everywhere I go. I can literally throw it in my pocket if I want to, but generally am kinder to it than that.

(Source: strapya-World.com)

It’s a solid little guy, and although it lacks bass compared to some of the other portable blue tooth speakers, I have a special place in my heart for Jambox. A few things to mention are

1) it’s made with an aluminum casing that makes it feel like you could play baseball with it and it’d still be alive after.

2) For the size —and price— the sound quality is fine. I mean, really, you can’t expect a better frequency response for something that size.

3)  It comes in at least 9 different colors (Ok, so that’s only one more than the JBL Charge 2+ —which I plan on trying out sometime, so stay tuned!)


The bluetooth for mine can be a little funky and doesn’t always connect to my Andriod devices, but my friend has one that never even hiccups when she uses it with her iPhone. I bring a small cable around with me just incase anyway.

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Caring For Your First Microphone

If it’s a dynamic mic like a SM57, have at it! But if it’s a condenser mic like a Rode NT1-A —which is great for new recordist—, here are a few tips for beginners

(Source: realtimeaudio.ca)

 Make sure your phantom power —aka 48V— is off before plugging mic cables to your preamp. Same for unplugging them.

(Source: Flikr -photo by Robert Bejil)

Don’t drop them. Really, don’t. This is obvious, but it can’t be stressed enough. They have fragile components and it only takes once. The pic above is of a dynamic mic. People practically throw those around --but not condenser microphones.

(Source: intracorp.ca)

Humidity.  Make sure to return your microphone to it’s case or bag after each use, especially if you live in a humid climate. One way to fight humidity is to have some Silica Gel Packets to absorb unwanted moisture from damaging the electronic parts. Just throw them in the bag with the mic.

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Soundwave Art & Jewelry

(Source: Shapeways.com -designs by MyTune)

“May the Force Be With You” Star Wars Waveform pendant.

(source: Soundwaveart.com)

There is a ton of amazing sound wave prints as well as jewelery! 

(Source: Makezine.com)

With 3D printing being so accessible and easy to use these days, tons of cool and custom made sound wave jewelry are being crafted.

This is a great gift idea for anyone --but especially for those audio lovers out there. 

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There’s an Austrian orchestra that uses instruments made entirely from fresh vegetables; after the show, these vegetables are cooked into a soup. -Source

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Their last big performance was on the 23rd of July in Vienna, Austria, at the 2015 Popfest. 

Maybe they will come tour in San Francisco someday?

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Fantastic Four: The Score

The new Fantastic Four is coming out this August 7th, but their digital soundtrack is already out! The interesting part is that, besides Marco Beltrami, they also got Phillip Glass to help score the film as well. Love or hate him, his music is part of the comic book movie world.

Take a listen to the first song on the soundtrack

The film is projected to make $46,000,000 opening weekend.

What do you think?

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Back to the Future: Feature film with live orchestra

In celebration of Back to the Future’s 30th anniversary, orchestras are playing Alan Silvestri’s Grammy Award-nominated score live around the world, accompanying the film as a live audience watches. I missed a chance to see the one in San Francisco, but from fellow film and music enthusiast who have attended, they said it was fantastic.

Check out this short video at one of their performances

Don’t you want to go and watch it now?

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1,000 Foo Fighers Fans Cover ‘Learn to Fly’

How else would you get their attention?

In a campaign to get Dave Grohl and fellow bandmates to come play in Cesna, northern Italy, organizer Fablo Zaffagini brings 1,000 musicians together to play a cover of the Foo Fighters song ‘Learn to Fly’.

Did it work? It sure did.

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ADR and Foley: Practicing

It’s summer finals, and time to get crunching. For one of my projects I’ve been doing the Foley and ADR for a short scene taken from Fight Club. We take about three minutes, wipe ALL the audio, and put it back using our own recordings and sound effects as practice. This is a sample of work from home, but we kept the intense parts out (like editing and mixing) so it was more... personal. 

Check it out

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Music for Peanuts

How many of you grew up with Peanuts?

I sure did.

Once upon a time, before I went down the path of music and sound design, I thought I was going to be an artist and cartoonist. In fact, Charles M. Schulz, author and creator of the comic series, was the reason I wanted to. But it is music, much like the music from the Peanuts TV show, that added to the already peaking interest of the audio world. The Peanuts theme song was written by Vince Guaraldi, and remains to be the most nostalgic pieces of music I can think of to date.

Now, on November 6th, 2015, the future release of The Peanuts Movie has caught my attention. I’m pretty interested in the fact that the score for it is done by Christopher Beck, who wrote the most recent theme song for Marvels Ant Man. 

I wait with bated breath, but recognize Beck as a pretty darn talented guy, and look forward to watching the Peanuts Movie.

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My Top 3 Musical Episodes in TV

It’s cheesy, it’s silly —it’s a musical episode on TV. Who doesn’t want to see that?

   1) Scrubs – “My Musical”

Season 6 Episode 6. I still feel a twinge of pain from past laughter when ever I think about this episode. My favorite song is “guy love” as J.D. and Turk sing in front of Pattie Miller, a patient who starts hearing everyone as a musical instead of speech

2)  Buffy The Vampire Slayer – “Once More, With Feeling”  

I binge watched Buffy for three weeks straight, and the musical still stands out in my memory as one of the silliest and most fun! Almost as silly as Scrubs. Thanks to a musical demon, the world of Buffy becomes a musical in Season 6 Episode 7. Did you know that Niles (Anthony Stewart Head) also played Frank N’ Furter in a tribute Rocky’ Horror Picture show?

3)  Fringe – “Brown Betty”

Season 2, Episode 20.       It all starts with Walter smoking something he calls “Brown Betty”. Gotta say, nothing like Olivia Dunham singing to a passed out Peter Bishop —and she’s pretty good, actually! They all were. I never expected a musical episode to come out of Fringe, but lo-and behold! I put it 3rd on the list because it doesn’t quite catch my heart strings as much as the others, and although their singing is charming, the others’ music felt more original.

If you could have any TV show make a musical episode, which one would it be?

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Straight Outta Compton

Can you name at least three of the forefathers of west coast gangster rap?

Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and Dr Dre, of course. This August 14th, a movie showing the story behind the rise of NWA, and the beginning of the west coast gangster rap scene, comes out to theaters.

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Game Of Thrones Musical

If you could make a musical of any TV-show, what would it be?

Game of Thrones, of course! Even though it’ll probably never reach broadway (but we can hope), Coldplay collaborated with the Game of Thrones cast in a twelve minute sketch. Here’s a sample of what they cooked up

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Theme Song of Ant Man

Ant Man is here!

All comic book movies need a dramatic theme song (of course), and this one didn’t disappoint thanks to a fantastic Christopher Beck. Check it out for your self and see if you’re drawn to the idea of watching a man shrink to the size of an ant while kicking ass. Can’t go wrong with that, right?