Hi Scott, I hope to hear from you soon.
Hal

Hi Hal

I hope to get back to you soon. My dealer friend must be swamped as I have not yet received the info we need.

Diki, I generally agree with you on this issue, but there are those of us who will never learn to fish or cook and prefer to go to great seafood places.

Same with recording. I will always use top rated studios because that's built into the film budget and we only do 10-12 film scores and 5 or 6 other projects a year.


That's not enought to be at the top of our game with an in-house studio. It's like a few years ago, before film basically disappeared.
It just didn't make sense to process in house. The volume just wasn't there to have a "top shelf" product.

This is not a disagreement with your advice on this matter...just a statement that, in certain instances, there are options which make sense, timewise and quality wise. I have one voice-over guy that will only record voice-overs with his own $5,000 plus mike (an old monster-can't recall the brand) at one studio. He's the voice of a major client...a vehicle manufacturer, so I have no choice in that case. His rate is $150.00 per hour. Mine for writing, shooting and producing is as much as $250.00 per hour, so it really is not economical for me to record "in-house".
If we had more volume, number of projects-wise and weren't also ewardproducing print, packaging and research, I'd certainly get into "in-house" recording on a national quality level.

Sounds like you've got your act together,
I look for your posts...a little dramatic compared to my style, but generally on target and well articulated.

Glad to know you,


Russ

Thanks, Russ.

I generally make my comments here as addressing either home players or local level pros, as there are only a few high end guys here. I know very well just how much difference the high-end makes when you have the budget and talent to justify it, but I tried to make the post address the needs of the poster, rather than be a blanket statement.

I work at an SSL equipped studio in my town, and yes, they've got Sony 800G's and all the pre's and toys you could ever want. But most of us here are just looking to lay stuff down at home for either our personal use or local release. As you know, once you get over the intimidation factor, it's FAR easier than many make out, and I love to encourage the faint of heart to give it a try, especially as it is SO inexpensive, nowadays!

But anyone with a pro-sized budget, first-call chops and little experience recording will get fantastic results going to a pro studio the first time out (hopefully!), but often the cost of that ONE trip to the studio can buy everything you need to make 'reasonably good' (in other words, ALMOST pro!) recordings at home, and of course, you now have the gear to do it every day with no additional expense...!

But the spectrum is wide, and many different approaches work. I was just trying to offer advice to the semi's and home players...

BTW, Russ, my email is in my profile, I would LOVE to hear some of your soundtrack work if you'd like to privately share it....

Hi, Diki. All of my work is propritetary. Final products are owned by the client, but I do have one rough I have permission to share. It was presented as I have it, then produced traditionally, with a real B-3, grand piano, horns, guitars, etc., with the finest musicians in this part of the country. I've been asked why I didn't use the rough, since, after a voice-over, no one could tell the difference, I could. Nigel, Tony Mads and Rory have heard it. I'll find it and send it sometime between now and the end of the year.

You are right on with your advice for people who need good, presentable recordings. I'd like to get more involved in that end of the work when I "semi-retire". The rough I will send you was done on a Korg 4-track...Alesis drum machine and whatever keyboards were laying around. My son works for me and is the techno guy as far as video editing, recording, computer networks, graphics, research aand database management etc. go. I'm the creative one, and leave the real work to him to manage.

I have a good relationship with this client, so I'll ask if this one piece can be posted. He has said that I can share copies, but I haven't addressed putting it on the internet. I'd like to, since several people have asked to hear samples of this boring but very profitable kind of work. It's a little boring, because the pieces are written to images, louped and the lead lines can't be so busy as to get in the way of the voice-over.

Thanks for the interest.


Russ