Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/110591
other tools within it "Alloy 2 helps me to speed up my mixing. I don't have to think about the tool itself, allowing me to keep on moving and thinking of the bigger picture the whole time." The iZotope RX 2 plug-in ($1,199/advanced version) is a complete audio repair toolkit.Their site claims the RX 2 can remove noise, hiss, buzz and hum, and clicks and crackles. Users can also restore clipped audio, visually select and suppress unwanted sounds, resynthesize missing audio, and change pitch and time. Alloy 2 ($199) integrates several tools into one plugin. It contains an Equalizer, two Dynamics modules (compressors), an Exciter (effects color, width, and harmonics), a De-Esser, a Transient Shaper (adjusts transients) and a Limiter. Powers recently upgraded to Alloy 2. Having several tools in one plug-in, and being able to rearrange those tools in any order, is ideal for Powers. He likes having two compressors together because he "doesn't like to smash things," he says. "I think you can control dynamics a great deal by doing a lot with a little. With Alloy 2, it doesn't sound like I'm doing a lot to the sound, but it just helps it to fit into the mix nicely." Recently, Powers used the RX and Alloy 2 plug-ins to clean and mix a pilot for National Geographic Television called Hard Riders, about two outdoor, western-type guys who are very historic in how they like to travel. They take a very "green" person with them on their travels. "Considering that everyone is wearing a lav, and there is a lot of grass rustling, and the mic would go underneath the clothes every now and then, I needed a ton of noise reduction. I had to pull all this audio together really quickly. That's where the Alloy 2 and the RX really made my work a lot faster." on the iZotope plug-ins to help him perfect his sound. With the CALM Act now in effect, Powers has been using iZotope's Insight plugin to help him meet the new output level requirements for broadcast. "Insight is revealing a lot of limitations that Pro Tools has as far as outputting files with transient peaks in it. The Insight plug-in is showing that a lot of transients over -10dB are going through. It's helping us, and making us cuss a lot at the same time, but it's helping us." OUTLAW SOUND Steve Pierson is "head outlaw" at Outlaw Sound in Hollywood (www.outlawsound. com). Pierson, a 15-year audio post veteran, has spent the last five years running Outlaw Sound. As chief engineer, he's mixed a ton of TV commercials, as well as TV shows, like Mudcats on the National Geo Channel. "Over the past couple of days, I've been doing a bunch of shows about traveling to fantastic beaches all over the world." Outlaw Sound has three edit suites, and in terms of outboard gear, their signal path is the same. This provides a consistency that is crucial to Outlaw Sound's workflow. "We do so much voiceover recording for commercials, and we do so many projects where people are coming back for copy changes, that I have my rooms and my booths all tuned so they really sound identical. I have the same signal path in all of them. So, anyone can jump in any booth or any of the rooms and record a line and it will fit into a spot without any muss." Outlaw's Steve Pierson likes Great River's MP-2NV preamp. For Pierson, a clean signal starts Powers spent eight days cleaning the pro- with the preamp. He uses the Great River MPduction sound, designing the sound, and 2NV preamp (www.greatriverelectronics.com) doing a full 5.1 mix. in all of his rooms. Since Outlaw Sound works For the past three years, Powers has relied with several freelancers, Pierson made sure the analog signal path was easy to follow. "I don't want to give them a convoluted signal path to figure out. I want them to be able to jump right in and get to work. I try to have a very clean analog signal path that they can relate to and actually see. So it starts with the preamp, and the preamp that I use is the MP-2NV. That is where I get really consistent sound. My clients like that." The Great River MP-2NV mic preamp ($2,960) contains two independent preamps in a single rack space. According to the Great River site, the MP-2NV uses a "big-iron" transformer-coupled output amplifier that is intended to produce a vintage sound. It boasts an ultra-quiet noise floor (EIN < -125 dbm with 150 ohm source at 40dB gain). Pierson mixed the first four seasons of Swamp People on the History Channel using the Great River MP-2NV. He especially liked the way the preamp handled the narrator's voice. "The narrator on Swamp People has a very low, gritty, swampy kind of voice, and without distorting, the preamp really highlighted all of the depth of his voice really nicely. The Great River preamp gave it a lot of body without overdriving it. It's a really nice utilitarian preamp." PONY SOUND Corey Roberts is the owner/head engineer of Pony Sound in Austin, TX (www. ponysound.com). His career started on the music and mastering side of audio, but after becoming proficient with the earliest version of Pro Tools in a mastering facility, he was sought after by a post house in Oklahoma City to use Pro Tools in audio post for advertising clients. "Pro Tools took me from music to broadcast. I went from recording local bands that came in smelling like pizza to working in broadcast with high-end advertis- www.postmagazine.com Post0213_032-35-audioMLV3finalread.indd 35 Pony Sound employed the Nugen VisLM-H plug-in to monitor the output levels of this ad campaign for Zales. continued on page 42 Post • February 2013 35 1/25/13 7:34 AM