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09 Apr

Wood Boy Dog Fish Returns!

Wood Boy Dog Fish
May 18 – June 24, 2018
Garry Marshall Theatre in Burbank, CA
Directed by Sean T. Cawelti
Written by Chelsea Sutton with Rogue Artists Ensemble

Wood Boy Dog Fish is a modern macabre retelling of Carlo Collodi’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio.” In this world-premiere play for mature audiences, the cricket is killed, Blue haunts us all, and the legendary Dogfish monster preys on our greatest fears in the tumbledown tourist trap amusement park of Shoreside, where a little wooden puppet comes to life at the hands of the wood-maker Geppetto.

I’m thrilled to be back designing sound for this refresh of Wood Boy Dog Fish. We’ve gone back and tweaked the story and designs; in the cast we have new faces and old friends. There’s new songs and I’m currently working on new sonic themes. I hope you’ll come see the show!

Wood Boy Dog Fish Poster

 

 

Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin

14 Oct

Kaidan Project was an immersive site specific theater piece featuring Japanese ghost stories told through a modern multi-cultural lens. I was co-sound designer for the piece (along with Gillian Moon). We took over 3 floors of an old warehouse and transformed it into a multi-sensory walk-through attraction. As with any Rogue show there’s fantastic puppetry, mask work, movement based performance, and highly stimulated design elements. The show ran from October 14 through November 5, 2017 in Los Angeles.

The sound system was generously donated by QSC. The system all runs through QSC’s Q-SYS DSP platform, CXD-Q amplifiers, and a combination of their passive and powered loudspeakers.

Kaidan Project Poster

 

Past Production: Currency

15 Apr

I created the sound design for Inkwell Theater’s production of Currency directed by Annie McVey and written by Jennie Webb. It’s a contemporary comedy about the absurdity of life, death, and finding love in a world that’s moving way too fast. It ran at VS Theater in Los Angeles from April 15th through May 21th 2016.

Production Photo from Currency
Photo by: Stephanie Fishbein Photography

 

Past Production: Wood Boy Dog Fish

06 Nov

Wood Boy Dog Fish
November 6 thru December 12, 2015
Presented by Rogue Artists Ensemble & Bootleg Theater
Directed by Sean T. Cawelti
Written by Chelsea Sutton with Rogue Artists Ensemble

Wood Boy Dog Fish is a modern macabre retelling of Carlo Collodi’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio.” In this world-premiere play for mature audiences, the cricket is killed, Blue haunts us all, and the legendary Dogfish monster preys on our greatest fears in the tumbledown tourist trap amusement park of Shoreside, where a little wooden puppet comes to life at the hands of the wood-maker Geppetto.

Wood Boy Dog Fish Logo

 

Masters Thesis - Building an Autonomous Audio Field Recorder

11 Dec

During 2013, I have been working on making my own audio field recorder. Inspired by the camera traps published on Smithsonian Wild, I set out to make a field recorder that records audio when it detects motion. My intent was to build a device that could be placed outdoors and left for an extended period of time. When the user retrieves the device, it contains audio recordings of animals or other subjects that triggered the device’s sensors.

As part of my masters degree in the graduate Sound Design program at UC Irvine, I submitted a thesis paper about my process building this recorder. You can read an extended version of this paper here: Building an Autonomous Audio Field Recorder.

My Autonomous Audio Field Recorder
My Autonomous Audio Field Recorder.

Here are some of my favorite anecdotal takeaways from the process:

I learned about some fascinating work being done by ecologists in the National Park Service, Wild Sanctuary, Purdue University, University of Windsor, and Michigan State University.

Murray Schafer defined three elements of a soundscape. I really love the concept of the soundmark element—sounds that are unique to a specific location. I have vivid soundmark memories of my childhood hometown, and I am really curious to know what soundmarks other people have an important connections to.

There is a wonderful open-source web application for documenting geo-tagged soundscape recordings. It’s called Pumilio, and it’s developed primarily by researches at Purdue University.

The National Park Service has published a wealth of information about soundscape resources in the national parks.

The frequencies other animals can hear is astounding. Elephants can hear frequencies in the 5-10 Hz range. Rodents and cats can hear frequencies as high as 80 kHz. Ecolocators, such as bats, use frequencies higher than 100 kHz, but also use frequencies below 100 kHz for communication. The paper High-Frequency Hearing by Henry and Rickye Heffner provides a great overview of this topic.

Locations unpolluted by human produced sounds are extremely endangered. Backcountry hikers knew something was wrong on September 11, 2001 because there were no sounds from overflights.

If you want to learn more about soundscape ecology, I highly recommend the NPR Science Friday interview with Bernie Krause and Bryan Pijanowski. Bernie Krause also gave an excellent presentation at TED Global 2013. For a comprehensive academic discussion, read the November 2011 Special Issue on Soundscape Ecology in the journal Landscape Ecology (Volume 26, Issue 9).

If you are looking for a recommendation about recording gear for nature recordings, Bernie Krause combines a Sennheiser MKH 30, a bi-directional microphone, with a Sennheiser MKH 40, a cardioid microphone. High dynamic range, low noise floor, and high quality components that can operate in a wide range of environmental conditions are the qualities required for a successful nature recording.

Protection against leeches is a genuine concern when recording in hostile environments: “Getting leeches out of your eyes requires caution and patience.”

 

Smells Like Teen Spirit for “Personal Mythology – An American Odyssey”

07 Jun

This piece appeared in Jenn Lott’s “Personal Mythology – An American Odyssey”. Jenn had asked for the sound of spirits and goblins reciting lines from Nirvana’s song “Smells Like Teen Spirit.“The previous piece ends with the line “...or the goblins will get you, if you don’t watch out.” I like to think of this piece as if the goblins are coming to get you.

 

 

 

Some Kind of Dare - Button Willow Locomotive

06 Jun

Button Willow Locomotive came into the Meyer Sound Design Studio in June 2012 to record a demo of a new song of theirs. I was producer and recording engineer.

Alex Heflin: mandolin, backup vocals
Amanda Carson: lead vocals, guitar
Albert Law: drums
Kyle Gustafson: bass

 

​We recorded the song in one Saturday afternoon, and had a lot of fun during the session.  We tracked bass, mandolin, and drums together, then added in guitar and vocals. I then mixed the song on the studio’s ProTools 9 D-Command rig.  The lead vocal effect is done with the Waves HMX Harmonics Generator… a goto plugin for me when I want a rich lush sound.  Have a Listen!

 

BWL Drumset
BWL Drumset
Guitar Recording Setup - KM184
Mandolin Recording Setup - KM184
Vocal Setup - U89
Vocal Setup - U89