There’s a very smart chap who lives in Wellington in New Zealand called Justin. He works at Park Road Post a lot of the time. He works in audio post. He gets thrown some “curly” problems from time to time, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Consequently, he makes his own solutions - Maggot Software. Not a lovely name, but great tools.

Justin has just released a new plugin which I am quite in love with. If you are mixing ITB in ProTools you’ll be familiar with the old sub path limitations – ie routing an LCR track into a 5.1 track and its fixed to the front array, you cant move it around within that space – until now. Spanner gives you exactly that power, to be able to pan within otherwise un-pannable situations. At only US$199 (introductory offer, normally $250) and with Maggot software’s reliable name on it, it’s an absolute steal for anyone who is mixing in surround in the box. Just buy it already. Here’s some videos showing how it awesomely works – love the smoothing function and shortcuts to toe things in and out. Brilliant work Justin!

 

Next Sydney ProTools User Group Night Announced

Thursday 19^th April, 630pm

At the AFTRS Main theatre

Guest speakers:

Mark Franken gives a detailed overview of his cueing, streaming and reconforming apps from “Sounds in Sync”

Stuart Newman from Avid gives details on the new HDX systems

Brent Heber talks all things clip gain in PT10, and how this helps the workflow from fx editors to mixers

Most importantly all the best people will be there, so you should come along and mingle with your fellow soundies.

Event organised/sponsored by AFTRS Open, ASSG and SPTUG

So I’ll be teaching a round of mid-year ProTools v10 courses at AFTRS OPEN – being offered at highly competitive rates.

110 is the first “pro level” course, with a fast paced curriculum covering elastic audio in depth, intro to deeper automation features and advanced editing techniques and shortcuts.

201 starts you on the path to all things hardware, covering things like the new OMNI and MADI interfaces, HD Native cards vs HDX and gets into more detailed mixing and automation workflows.

210P is the hard-core post elective, into satellite connections, timecode workflows and is written with the pro tools audio post operator (who works in the industry already) in mind from beginning to end.

Plus if you do both Pro Tools 200 level courses, or Pro Tools 110 and both Pro Tools 200 level courses, you’ll receive special discounted rates (see below).

Pro Tools 110: Production 1

Designed for industry professionals, this course builds on the 101 module and explains the Pro Tools recording, editing and mixing workspace in detail.

13 – 15 June, Sydney, $900 ($810 Early Bird / Industry discount) http://www.open.aftrs.edu.au/course/U510

Pro Tools 201: Pro Tools Production 2

The course continues to build on the fundamental concepts and topics Introduced in Pro Tools 110. Learn the core concepts and skills to operate Pro Tools in a professional studio environment.
18 – 19 June, Sydney, $950 ($855 Early Bird / Industry Discount) http://www.open.aftrs.edu.au/course/U532

Pro Tools 210P: Post Production Techniques

Learn techniques for working with Pro Tools in a professional post production environment. Concepts and skills learned in Pro Tools 101, 110 and 201 are reinforced with practical post-specific examples.

20 – 22 June, Sydney, $1,250 ($1,150 Early Bird / Industry Discount) http://www.open.aftrs.edu.au/course/U533

SPECIAL OFFER:

Discounted rate of $2,000 if you do both 200 series courses

Discounted rate of $2,500 if you do Pro Tools 110 plus both 200 series courses – over $4000 at other schools!

To receive these rates call: 1300 065 281

So following on the the useful Just Log It! app, you can use this free tool from Sounds in Sync to import the resultant CSV file into PT as markers!

Edi Marker!

I’ve been using this handy little app for a while now, great if you’ve got a continuous cut for screenings and can log your notes along the timeline. If you’re working in reels/spools it can be a bit of a pain to split your notes back into reels from a screening.

http://www.justlogitapp.com/

So quite a bit on of late…

Wave Rider 2.1 is now available – with a big new interface and quite a lot more flexibility. If you havent already seen this plugin or tried it out, definitely get amongst it.

ProTools 10.0.1 came out a little while ago with some decent bug fixes. Hopefully they get around to fixing channel strips EQ gain coarseness soon!

The Australian Screen Sound Guild has a bunch of new committee members and looks to want to shake things up and get much more active this year. If you don’t know your local members or haven’t applied to join your local guild reach out and get in touch with us!

Apple have a new OS on the horizon, make our mac pros even more consumer…a worrisome trend

Rode have released a new DSLR mic, with an in built flash recorder. The idea being to lower the noise floor on location significantly over using the on board line inputs.

Ohh nearly forgot the new Universal Audio Apollo is just about shipping – cool box with on board DSP to plugin process with low latency on your front end doubling as DSP in your DAW. An ex Digi product manager or two was involved in its design, so I’m confident it will integrate very well with PT10.

Massey Plugin owners may rejoice in an update to the famed L2007 limiter. Just updated to v1.3.3848 on Feb 15th.

AFTRS Open program has kicked off for 2012. I’ll be teaching the first hard core PT production course, PT110, spread over 3 Saturdays in May. Well worth it as it dives deeply into elastic audio, editing and starts people on the path to automation chops.

Lastly – Sydney folks come along to the AFTRS Sound Bytes evening on Thursday Feb 23rd. Reviewing all things Red Dog with Mr Will Ward!

Here’s what Paul has been up to over at Neyrinck!! Brilliant!!

Hello to everyone and Happy New Year! If you follow my Sumsound facebook page you’ll know I’ve been upgrading my studio and having a fine time doing that. Some news thats new and approved for the start of 2012…

Apparently Waves are sitting very hard on the fence about supporting the new ProTools AAX DSP format. Online conjecture is rife and many fairly reliable sources are saying that Waves are holding out to see what the uptake is of the new Avid HDX core systems (that replace the ageing TDM technology) before committing to any development. As far as mixing goes, I really dont care if I have a bit of delay in my system, but for folks tracking/recording big sessions with waves plugins this creates a bit of a pickle. Email them if you have strong feelings on the matter!

I wrote a comprehensive review of PT10 for AudioTechnology magazine recently- you can read it online via their site, page 64!

I will be teaching the Avid ProTools short courses at AFTRS this year, we are offering PT101 over 6 x Tuesday nights in Feb and PT110 over 3 x Saturdays in late March early April. Any Sydney readers, please spread the word to any family/friends who are looking to speed up their PT chops.

If you haven’t already grabbed Valhalla FreqEcho you’re slow off the mark – an awesome free plugin for 2012!

On the paid plugin side of things, Abbey Road are half price at the moment – IMHO their Brilliance pack is..well…yknow

Anyone out there using Paul Neyrincks VControl Pro? Stay tuned for some awesome developments on that front this year. Can’t say more at this stage but some very nifty features coming to it soon.

I’ve been lucky enough in the last few months to have some small success and have made a decision to re-invest in my business, upgrading some gear, picking up a few new plugins things like that. I havent spent any significant money since I opened my doors nearly two years ago, so I consider it overdue!

So I’m hunting around for a deal on some new speakers and couldn’t help but have a rant about that experience. Read on if you find my ire and frustration marginally amusing, if not, tune in again next blog post…If you’re an australian distributor I urge you to read on, to better understand your clients perpective on your “salesmanship”.

I worked in pro audio distribution for years, I know the frustration of those companies who provide solid support to whoever calls them at whatever hour of the day and they never asks a sheckle for the honour of it. I also understand that distributors largely only get negative calls – I mean when was the last time you rang your reseller/distributor to thank them for a trouble free, solid product? It’s a thankless task being in the middle at times (oh except for the money in it).

However, you’d have to be living under a rock not to realise the aussie dollar and US dollar are close to parity – which makes for “cheap” products when shopping online from overseas stores. I mean A Current Affair have done how many bloody special investigations on the topic since we went over 90 cents? So can I be blamed for shopping around for a deal? I don’t think so, in fact I think its disrespectful to my family not to shop for the best deal to keep my cost of business economical – and more importantly I dont think I deserve a dose of guilt and a lecture on my evils from the local distributors…

I was given a great quote overseas where the landed cost of the goods, with shipping AND having rightfully paid the GST on the way into the country had the gear quite a few hundred dollars cheaper than the best price I could get locally. The locals didn’t have stock, had to check with other folk OS outside business hours to give me an ETA on stock, the turnaround was going to be significantly longer and yet they STILL had an angry tone and defensively asked me questions like “do you buy a lot of gear overseas do you!?” (the implication, HOW VERY DARE YOU!).

They went on to aggressively explain they provide EXCELLENT service, and that I can ask clients XYZ all about it….I’m sorry, but isnt that YOUR job? To SELL me? To convince of this supposed added value you provide? Why should I ring someone other than you to convince me to shop with you?? How about…

a) providing a written warranty document, outlining what added service support I can expect that differentiates your business from offshore businesses?

b) Provide some testimonials of clients in writing – maybe even, go forbid, on the same document above?

Or at the very least, leave your “sense of entitlement” to my sale out of your tone of voice when you try to convince to shop with you? It’s now a global market – you are NOT entitled to my sale, you have to EARN it. Calm yourself down, sell me, do your job and I’ll shop with you – but given a lovely, fast, courteous experience with overseas stores compared to grumpy, defensive, agressive locals who are demanding more money and providing little in the way of justification for the difference, is it any wonder more and more people shop online?

Manage your clients perspectives – “the truth” is subjective – this article is a buyers perspective and I urge local pro audio resellers to adapt to survive and to keep aussie dollars in Australia for all our sakes.

To all my Sydney subscribers/readers, the next Sydney ProTools User group night will be held in a weeks time, Tuesday 13th December.

Venue: AFTRS Mix theatre.

Time: 530pm for a 6pm kick off

We’ll be digging into the post features in PT10 in detail, looking over clip gain, disk cache and audiosuite improvements. Lots to talk about!

Also Avid have kindly given us a pair of headphones to give away as a door prize! Please rsvp on the Event at Facebook if you can make it.