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www.postmagazine.com 29 POST SEPTEMBER 2018 Fame Induction Ceremony, as well as the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. In fact, she worked on the latter last November, mixing the project at Sim in Los Angeles. "That's a show I do every year," she says of the Victoria's Secret special, "and that room was set up impeccably…I had a very good experience in the Los Angeles mix room and our rooms here in New York are set up similarly. That's our goal: to make sure we have equipment that is the same, and that the different mixers feel comfortable. If I am mixing a show in Los Angeles or if one of our Toronto mixers is com- ing to New York to do an episodic series, every- one feels comfortable and the rooms translate through the different locations." For the past two years, Pelino says she has been relying on Penteo 7 Pro. The Penteo 7 Pro Suite provides a comprehensive set of 5.1 and 7.1 surround upmixing tools within Pro Tools. Penteo delivers a clean upmix with no unwanted sonic ar- tifacts. The tool includes built-in presets and DAW automation to speed up workflows. "Many of the documentaries and big specials like The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, are music-based shows," Pelino explains. "And many of the elements that are combined, in addition to the performances by the amazing bands, are little documentary seg- ments and film clips…That seems to be a common thread in any of the specials that I do." While music is remixed in 5.1, Pelino says she has been relying on Penteo 7 Pro to do clean up mixes of the music that appears in documentary sections. The goal is to get those segments to match as closely as possible the quality of the music in the live performances. "I find that it really translates perfectly in the stereo fold down," she notes. "There is absolute- ly no phasing or artifacts, and that to me really works as a very important tool in mixing 5.1. Especially for the documentary sections where we have underscore music." Another tool Pelino finds herself using all the time is Izotope's RX Post Production Suite. "I have been using it at least a minimum of three years," she notes. "We are able to remove all noises, clicks, pops, crackle, mouth noises, back- ground noises…We are able to take out crackling from lav mics [and] plosives as well." She has worked on a number of comedy shows for Comedy Central and Netflix, and the ability to take plosives off the mics very easily and very clean "has been a game changer. I'd say it one of the most important tools we are using currently." Beyond the Izotope and Penteo plug-ins, Pelino also relies on EQs, automation and reverbs from Waves, and Solid State Logic plug-ins that work much like the hardware she used earlier in her career. "I learned on an SSL console," she notes. "Using the SSL channels and stereo compressor really works for me because it reminds me very much of the stereo compressor I had on my SSL digital console." Paul Sandweiss — Sound Design Corporation Paul Sandweiss got his start in the 1970s as a live sound mixer and in the mid '90s, opened his own facility, Sound Design Corporation (sound- designcorporation.com) in Hollywood. The studio specializes in audio for live broadcasts, and regu- larly works on many of the highest profile awards programs, including The Oscars, Emmys, Grammy Awards, BET Awards, ACM Awards and Billboard Music Awards. Sandweiss, himself, will work on anywhere from 12 to 15 events per year. "I am hands-on," he notes. "Anything that comes in through here, especially if it has music involved, I am hands-on." He studied electrical engineering in college, and always had an interest in working at the highest level of sound quality. When it came time to invest in his own studio, he went with equipment from Fairlight, which is now owned by Blackmagic Design. "I'm a long-time Fairlight user," he says. "I am still using all the hardware, which they still make. They make a complete controller, a fader pack and all that. I have 15 Fairlights." Sound Design Corporation has five mix suites, and they are all Fairlight-equipped. "When I listened to and played with all the different DAWs in their early stages in mid '94 to '95, I found the only thing that sounded good was the Fairlight," he recalls…"Back in those days, everything didn't run on the Windows platform. Everything ran on their proprietary operating sys- tem, which was fine, but at some point everybody was going to have to change." So far, he's been pleased with the support Blackmagic Design has offered. "It certainly matters," he says of the compa- ny's commitment to the product line. "Every time somebody puts out a new piece of soft- ware, then you have to make sure your stuff is compatible with the new software. There are so many compatibility issues going forward that I absolutely want to believe that they are going to maintain support of the product. It's a phenomenal product. I don't even know if they know how amazing a product it is?!" For the Emmys broadcast, Sound Design Corporation created sound design, in-house, for all of the nominee packages. He will then take a flight pack system, bringing multiple Synergy recorders with him to capture the live music. "I'm working with the band and live artists that are coming in to perform," he explains. "I still use an outboard console, but the Fairlights do all the recording and heavy lifting — mixing and prepar- ing. It's convenient because Fairlight has always integrated video with their audio." The Synergy system, he says, is very flexible, giving him complete control for editing and mixing. "It accepts all the plug-ins, so you can have all your favorite reverbs and effects. It's a very concise, fast-working environment. You've got to turn around this stuff real quickly these days." In the weeks ahead, Sound Design Corporation will be working on Black Girls Rock!, The Primetime Emmys, a 90th anniversary Mickey Mouse special, a remake of Elvis's 1968 in-the- round concert and a tribute to Quincy Jones, who turned 85. AUDIO TOOLS I've been using Nuendo since Version 1.0, ever since I first tried it when I realized how intuitive the UI, structure and workflow is for how I approach projects. Nuendo (www. steinberg.net - $1,880) is a Swiss Army knife that can handle any aspect of audio post production or interactive sound de- sign, allowing me to go from cinematic mixing, linear sound design, interactive music composition, and game audio asset building all in the same environment at a fraction of the cost compared to the hardware-bound competition. Nuendo also keeps up with the constantly evolving new technologies and techniques, often being the first mainstream DAW to incor- porate them in a polished and usable toolset. Kristoffer Larson —Formosa Group Larson