The thing about no revenues and no deadlines is that we take as long as we want for production so hang in there folks.
Up until this week, to make sound level changes in one of the 50 tracks, we had to use the mouse to move virtual sliders on the LCD Monitor in the SAW STUDIO software. You could only move one virtual slider at a time and its not very intuitive.
Garth picked up a Mackie MCU Pro 9 channel mixing board. It plugs into his pc with a USB cable and interfaces with his digital editing software. The mixing board sliders have motors in them so when you move the virtual sliders in the software, the real world sliders move too. (and vice versa). Way cool. They used to call this a HUI interface (“huey”).
So now all 50 virtual tracks in the software boil down to 3 real world sliders on the new mixing board for final mix. On Saturday night I was able to do a mix for the 30 minute ep 4 in about 45 minutes and all I had to do was drive 3 sliders (Narration/Dialogue stem, Music stem, and SFX stem) in real time. In the past, we’d spend hours driving for a bit, stop, change a db level from minus 8 to minus 6 at a certain spot, then backup and re-listen again. Drive for a little while longer, stop, change the level from -6 back to -8, start up again.
Now I basically leave the narration level at 0 and one hand drives the Music volume and the other hand drives the SFX volume and I just listen and make level adjustments at the same time (like the old fashioned analog days). The difference is that in the analog days of the old Series 1, I had to do a 1/2 hour performance in a single take to get all the volumes right for the CD’s, effects on cassette tape, voice on Reel or Dat, and flying in Kendall’s synthesizers. With the MCU and Digital Editing Software, its the best of both worlds
Anyway its frikken cool and I can’t wait to get this story wrapped up and released to the public for real.
As some of you “old skool” fans may know, Searcher & Stallion has been around in one form or another for close to 15 years now. The show was originally broadcast as part of Scott Howard’s weekly radio program “Variables” which aired on KRCL 90.9 FM in Salt Lake City, Utah. Between 1992 and 1995 Searcher and his robotic companion Stallion managed to build quite an extensive fan base by providing something that couldn’t really be found anywhere else on the radio dial. Fans were drawn by the gripping stories, the unique melding of audio drama and electronic music and by the plight of Searcher as he quested for knowledge and self discovery. The show was truly one of a kind and for me, became part of my weekly calendar. Each Sunday night I would tune in to listen as Searcher & Stallion explored the galaxy looking for clues.
