Gear Review: Sound Devices 744T location sound recorder

     I'm a little late to the party here as, now, the 744T has been around for quite a number of years now and has effectively been superseded by newer and more feature rich recorder/mixers like Sound Devices own 664 and 633 and Zaxcom's Nomad. However, as I was in the market for an improved recording experience over my Roland R26, the 744T presented itself, through the 2nd hand market, as a very affordable upgrade path to reaching a professional grade recorder with Timecode syncing capabilities. That combined with my collection of Sennheiser MKH mics, fulfills my goal of attaining the most transparent audio recordings I've yet been able to make.

Review: SSL Duende Native Essentials

     Solid State Logic (SSL) have been at the top of the studio audio market for what seems like forever. Their success has been built on products that are both consistently incredible sounding and reliable. Studio tools that never fail and hardware that stands the test of time.

     Their Duende plugins are no exception. When these plugins were first realised it was required that any users also had a powerful DSP card to go with them; such were the processing requirements that would have strained computers of that time to breaking point without ever hitting useful numbers of instances of the plugins. With the power of modern computers SSL have completely revamped their plugin offering over the last few years so that they can all be run "Native", which means without additional DSP cards or boxes.

Film&TV: Ren

A few months ago I agreed to help out on the set of a new fantasy web series called Ren.

It was a real pleasure working with Kate and her highly skilled and amiable crew, on what should end up being a great series.

Here's the synopsis:
    Ren is a new original independent fantasy series from producer and director Kate Madison, the creator of the hugely successful Lord of the Rings prequel Born of Hope which has had more than 29 million online views.
    When a young woman is possessed and her face branded by a powerful ancient spirit, she becomes feared by all who see her. Banished from her home and hunted by the powerful ruling order of the Kah’Nath, Ren refuses to accept her fate and journeys across the land to discover what she is and if there are others like her. Joined on her perilous quest by a small band of outcasts, led by the mysterious Hunter, she discovers that the truths she has been taught may all have been a lie.

And here's the trailer (which was made before principle photography of the main part of the series)



The series has now wrapped on photography for the series and post production is now underway. Please go and check out the sites below and keep following the project as I think it has a lot of potential.

www.rentheseries.com
Ren on Facebook

Gear Review: TC Electronic BMC-2 Monitor Controller and DAC

    When my old TC Level Pilot died on me I needed a new master monitor controller. The TC Level Pilot is essentially a stacked matched pair of variable resistors in one pot. The build quality seems high, until general wear and tear takes it's toll and it starts crackling and cutting out. Not great for a pro audio device. I needed something more feature packed and with more advanced features and greater overall value.

    My final choice as the replacement for that mini monitor controller was the BMC-2 also by TC Electronic. This unit is really a very different beast. What we have here is a multi-input DAC with the ability to take AES, SPDIF, ADAT and TOS and convert any one of those to a couple of balanced XLR outputs, a headphone output, and to a digital output of your choice. All the while the BMC-2 provides a variety of monitoring functions for the mix and mastering engineer.

Short Film: Malachi Trailer

    Here's the trailer for a short film I did production sound recording on earlier this year. The film is called Malachi.



"MALACHI is a dark, psychological thriller that embarks on a roller-coaster journey of love between three characters from different walks of life. Ricardo, Charlene and Malachi.

Set in a world filled with trauma, Ricardo and Charlene must battle to overcome past demons in an attempt to disable psychological disorder from unfolding and disrupting their newly found equilibrium.

As the drama begins to unfold, we are gradually introduced to flashbacks and nightmares, which distort Ricardo and Charlene’s reality, leaving the coast, clear for Malachi to manipulate Ricardo to a path of destruction."

Director - Daniel Bailey
Writer/Producer - Sanchez Brown
Ricardo - Solomon Israel
Charlene - Naydene Mills