Jurassic Park (Mix Analysis)

Sound Designer – Gary Rydstrom
Supervising Sound Editor – Richard Hymns
Dialogue Editor – Sara Bolder
Sound Effects Editor – Teresa Eckton, Ken Fischer
Re-recording Mixer – Gary Rydstrom
Re-recording Studio – Skywalker Sound

I chose the 1993 film Jurassic Park. The head sound designer for the film was Gary Rydstrom, who has an impressive catalog of work. Over his career he has won a total 7 Academy Awards for films like Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The sound effects crew was overseen by George Lucas, though, as all the sound was done at Skywalker Ranch.

Jurassic Park was actually the first film released in DTS format. DTS is a multichannel audio developed as a competitor to Dolby Digital. For mixing the film, Rydstrom used an SSL analog console. He created various premixes of foley, background effects, crashes, and crash “sweeteners.” These could then all be worked with to create the final mix.

Since there are no records of what dinosaurs sounded like, Rydstrom had some creative liberties. Instead of getting sounds from a library, he had his team go out and record sounds. For the dinosaurs, they collected a bunch of sounds from different animals. For example, the T-Rex was achieved by mixing a baby elephant, a tiger, an alligator, and a whale. He put all the samples onto his keyboard, so that he could “play” the T-Rex. Rydstrom also says, “The shaking sound of the T Rex shaking the lawyer back and forth and killing him, is really just my little Jack Russell Terrier Buster playing with a rope toy.”

Another interesting mixing technique was done with the foley. In one scene where the T-Rex is attacking at night, there is a ton of echo on the foley. Rydstrom says that by itself it doesn’t sound that good, but when you play it with the ambience effects that are also in the scene, it fits in.

With the gear we have at Towson, we could take some of the handheld recorders to capture some animal sounds to mix for the dinosaur noises.

Map:
1:34:30 – Galloping in the distance, reverb
1:34:51 – Footsteps from characters
1:34:52 – Noise from dinosaur, sounds like a hawk
1:34:59 – Dinosaur passes in front of screen, noise pans from right to left
1:35:02 – Dinosaurs stepping on tree branch, thumping when they hit the ground
1:35:18 – T-Rex makes noise as it appears from the left side of screen, crushing foliage
1:35:20 – T-Rex bites other dinosaur and it squeals
1:35:27 – T-Rex shaking the dinosaur back and forth (Rydstrom’s dog)

http://www.mpse.org/education/bigmovierydstrom.html

Internship Update (March 1st)

My internship is going well so far; currently I have 56 hours logged. I was originally concerned that I might be short on hours since I'm not on a set schedule. Though fortunately, in this case, they usually stay in the studio until the early hours of the morning.

The main thing, I've been working on is a mixtape that was just released. I engineered most of the tracks and mixed a few. The next project we're going to work on is an album that is going to be released in late March.

"In the Air Tonight" - Phil Collins (Mix Analysis)

Engineer – Hugh Padgham
Producer – Hugh Padgham, Phil Collins
Mixing Engineer(s) – Hugh Padgham
Mastering Engineer(s) ?
Studio Recorded – Townhouse Studios
Studio Mastered ?

The track that I chose for this mix analysis was Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight.” It was produced by Hugh Padgham who has also worked with artists like Yes, Paul McCartney, and Elton John. Phil Collins met Hugh Padgham while working on a Genesis album.

Overall, I like the mix. There is a lot of reverb, which was typical for the time period. Phil Collins had originally recorded a demo of the song in his home studio. The drums were programmed from a Roland CR78 drum machine, which is ironic since Phil Collins was known primarily as a drummer. Instead of redoing the songs completely, the album version was based off of the demo tracks that Phil Collins recorded in his home studio.

The signature “big drum” sound wasn’t necessarily achieved by how you would think. The Townhouse studio where he recorded didn’t have a huge live room. There was, however, a talk back mic in the live room so that the engineer could hear the musician. It was heavily compressed so you could easily hear the performer. Somewhat randomly, Phil Collins was talking then started playing the drums. Hugh Padgham heard the drums, heavily compressed, through the talk back mic and thought they sounded cool. They took that signal and ran it through a noise gate, and mixed it back with the original signal. The sound became a signature for Collins and pop songs of the 80s.

The vocals were actually mixed with a limiter on Collins voice. He set the attack very slow and the release really fast, so only part of the word could get through before it got cut off. This gives more emphasis to the front of the words.

In order to get the signature drum sound at Towson, we could put a room mic as far away from the drum kit as possible. We could then take that signal and run it through some of the plugins on Pro Tools – a reverb, then a noise gate with the cut off time set really short.

Mix Analysis:
:00 – Drums start, sounds like two kicks panned hard left, right
:06 – Guitar Chord rings out
:17 – Low Synth
:17 – Guitar Lead, lots of reverb
:26 – Keyboard Synth (Prophet 5)
:37 – Vocals, Reverb, Delay
1:08 – Guitar Chord rings out

Source: http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_phil_collins_air/index.html

"Umbrella" - Rihanna (Mix Analysis)

Engineer - ?

Producer – Tricky Stewart, The-Dream

Mixing Engineer(s) – Manny Marroquin

Mastering Engineer(s) – Chris Gehringer

Studio Recorded – Westlake Record Studios (LA)

Studio Mastered – Sterling Sound

            For this mix analysis, I chose Rihanna’s 2007 hit “Umbrella.” The song was mixed by Manny Marroquin, who mostly works in the hip hop/urban genre. He is known for working on records for other top artists such Kanye West, Usher, and Alicia Keys.

            For his approach to the mix, Marroquin says that, “something like Umbrella, I thought, needed to sound as warm as possible but yet aggressive as possible too.” With the vocals, there was a lot of emphasis on delay. On Rihanna’s main verse vocal track, there are two delays panned hard left and hard right (quarter note and eight note, respectively). On the return of the delays/reverbs, Marroquin used a doubler plug-in from Waves. This gave them a more “lush” as well as wide sound.

            For reverb he went with outboard gear, specifically the Lexicon 480 and an AMS reverb unit. For compression used a Tube-Tech CL 1B and Avalon 2044. For EQ, he stuck with plug-ins from Nieves. With the instrumental, he EQ’d the sample so it wasn’t so surrounded by the drums.

            The punchiness of the drums and the vocal effects makes this song compare to tracks like Alicia Keys “No One” as well as many other urban/R&B tracks.

Analysis:

:00 – Starts with drums, very punchy
:01 – Jay-Z intro, not much effects
:10 – Jay-Z verse, one main vocal track. Multiple Ad Lib tracks
:11 – Synth Line
:13 – Rihanna “Eh”. Multiple Tracks, Panned, Effects (Reverb, Delay)
:33 – Rihanna Verse w/ Reverb and Delay
:33 – Bass hit on the “one” of each measure.
:50 – High Synth
:55 – Bass Synth

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5MWmif7teM

Major Project Proposal

For the Major project, I will be re-doing the sound for a short film that my roommate made last semester. It was shot well but I think the sound I think the sound could have been done a little better. It's hard to make out the dialog in some parts and some of the sound effects don't sound that good.

I will work on it when I have time during the week in the audio labs.

Inspirations for the work will be the films, Apocalypse Now and Being Johns Malkovich, which I feel both had very good sound.

My roommate originally mixed the sound for the film, but I feel I could bring in some audio experience and make it sound better.

The only hurdles I expect to face are time constraints.

Minor Project Proposal

I will be working on remixing a track that I recorded for a friend’s band a while back. The song is “Voicemail” and the band is Blind Man Leading. The original mix sounded okay, but I want to make it more commercial sounding.  I still have all of the files from the session.

I will do all of the mixing at my house. I will work on it on weekends when I have time.

The mixing inspirations for the piece are “Time Flies” by Porcupine Tree and “Thinking of You” by Katy Perry. I want the mix to have a commercial vibe like the Katy Perry song, but still retain some of it’s “raw” qualities like the Porcupine Tree track.

I will bring to the project a new perspective. The original mix was influenced a lot by the artist. This one will be all me.
 

The only hurdles that I expect to face are time constraints and perhaps a bit of trouble lining up the tracks in Pro Tools, since they were recorded with Adobe Audition.

"Don't Fear The Reaper" (Mix Analysis)

Music
Engineer	Shelly Yakus
Producer	Sandy Pearlman
Mixing Engineer(s)	Shelly Yakus and Sandy Pearlman
Mastering Engineer(s)	Tony Stevens
Studio Recorded	Record Plant (NYC)
Studio Mastered	?

Overall, the mix is very reverb heavy. The drums sometimes get a little lost. The overall levels of the mix climax in the section where the guitar solo kicks in. Sounds good for the era. I feel it could use a little more cowbell though.

When the song was mixed, Shelly Yakus claims it was “worked from the top down.” They started with the voice, then the guitar, then added the drums and rhythm elements. Each instrument was submixed and then ran through pieces of gear from different generations. This helped them achieve some interesting sounds. For the song’s signature guitar solo, they daisy chained channels on a 4-track tape machine so it could be used as a delay.

The vocals weren't performed by the band's primary vocalist. They were recorded by guitarist, Donald Roeser.
The vocals were sent through a Pultec EQ and LA-2A compressor, then went straight to tape.

Since most of the effects were achieved with vintage equipment, it may be hard to replicate the same feel with the gear we have here. However, the Yamaha multi-effects unit has some reverb effects that might get us close to that sound.

The thing that makes this track well-mixed is that overall feel. The reverb gives it a certain ominous ambience that fits the songs theme and lyrics.

Producer and mixing engineer, Sandy Pearlman, has an impressive catalog of work. As well as working on Every Blue Oyster Cult album, he has also worked on albums for bands like The Dictators and The Clash. 

Mix Analysis

:01 - Signature Guitar Riff starts, Panned Left, lot's of delay and reverb

:04 - Second Guitar kicks in, Panned Right

:06 - One hi-hat hit

:07 - Drums, cowbell

:14 - Vocals, multiple lower harmonies

:16 - Organlike instrument begins to swell

:27 - Left guitar begins playing single note son the beat.

:34 - Second vocal track "call and response". Multiple tracks with effects and panned.

:35 - Right Guitar kicks in with signature riff

:47 - Lead Guitar 

:50 - Multiple Vocals track harmonies

Information Sources:

http://mixonline.com/recording/tracking/blue-oyster-cults-dont-fear-reaper/index.html