Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1259912
Vince went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston to study music production & engineering. "While at Berklee, I continued to play my instruments, study composition and arranging, and as many musical disciplines as possible. I knew that would be of the utmost importance in whatever I did in my career, and it proved to be solid thinking." Vince has also had a storied career. "I'm proud to say that I am one of the privileged few to have worked on every single Pixar feature film. Because I am on staff at Pixar running the recording studio, I am part of these films from the early development stages right up until they 're released. Often afterward, working on the post-release content for the digital releases and bonus materials." In addition to the mics that Doc uses, some directors and editors ask for a boom mic. "I'll often use a Schoeps CMIT 5, a Neumann KM81, or a Sennheiser MKH 8060. The main mic (U87) is also sent to a video recorder for Animation Video Reference. There are usually table microphones set up for the director and whoever else (co-director, writer, editor) is in the studio with the talent (Those are usually Neumann TLM 170's or KM 105's). Often those are recorded to document comments and direction. Sometimes there are EPK crews present and some combination of the main mic and director's mic are routed to the remote sound person's rig. The layout is most often the talent in front of the mics facing the director's table. The director or someone else present (co-director, writer, editor) will read opposite the actor. Sometimes we'll have two or more talent in the room together (or in a separate ISO booth), so this setup is multiplied by the number of actors." Vince was happy to talk gear. "For the actors' mics, I generally run Focusrite Red 7 preamps directly into a Lynx Aurora AD converter, then digitally into an Avid HD IO. All the utility mics follow similar routes except the preamps, which are most often Focusrite ISA 110's as part of a Focusrite 428 rack unit. When I have to travel to remote studios, besides microphones, I always bring my Red 7's, a Dorrough Meter Bridge, and a Brainstorm Timecode Destripalyzer." (The Destripalyzer analyzes and corrects timecode signals.) Vince was blessed to record Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner in Carl's den, where he and Mel had lunch and watched movies every day. "Before heading down there, I did a little recon watching Jerry Seinfeld's show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, where Jerry had lunch with Mel and Carl in that same room. That was quite the fun adventure. The room was quite manageable with wall-to-wall carpeting, comfy armchairs, and couches. There was the occasional truck or siren in the distance, but after shutting off the fluorescent lights, the ice machine, and the mini fridge, it was more than adequate. I set Carl up in his favorite armchair with Mel directly opposite in a matching armchair. They faced each other so they could riff and feed off each other's energy. Director Josh Cooley was off to one side and everyone else was on the couch. I was set up in a far corner with my equipment on a TV tray (the same one you see them eating their pastrami sandwiches on during Jerry 's show!). Each actor had a U87 and a CMIT 5. I had two Sound Devices 744's as a main recorder and backup recorder. I also threw up a Sony D-50 recorder to capture the room for posterity." Like Doc, Vince is very thankful. "I've had many great mentors … too many to name, but I can't thank Doc Kane enough for giving me my first chance to be in the engineer's chair on a Disney animated feature way back when (on) Beauty and the Beast (the original). After that, I was privileged to work on many of the Walt Disney feature animation films and, eventually, that was my introduction to working for Pixar. So, thanks Doc, you changed my life!" DAVID BOUCHER: Scoring Mixer Scoring mixer David Boucher grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta playing bass in a band, "Just like every other mixer," as he put it. "When it came time to record an album, the job fell to me to figure it out in my basement studio that I built with my dad. I had a great music teacher in high school, Chris Moore, who encouraged me to keep music as my focus and especially my love of recording. I studied music at the University of Miami where Ken Pohlmann, John Monforte, Clyde Hagler, and Will Pirkle kept me busy in the studio and Matt Bonelli kept me playing electric bass. "From there, I went to New York to make fruit baskets for the big studios while recording bands at smaller ones. In 1998, I went to work for Bob Clearmountain and that's where I met (record producer) Mitchell Froom. Mitchell and I have been recording together ever since and he brought me on to his productions of songs for Randy Newman's albums. It was through Mitchell that I got my start with Randy and eventually started mixing his movie scores." David's first film for Disney was The Princess and the Frog, for which Randy Newman wrote the songs and score. Since then, he has worked with them on subsequent movies with Randy as the composer and beyond. Talking tech, David says, "For the orchestral recordings and mixes, I used a Neve 88RS console with the SP2 fitted. For the band recording (songs), we used a Neve BCM10 console (with 1073's) and a variety of other outboard mic preamps for recording. I mixed in the box, with Pro Tools 2019 as the DAW on all of the material." David continues, "I delivered most of the orchestral pieces as 5.1 plus a 5.1 of the orchestra percussion close mics. The songs were delivered in fairly discrete stems—drums, perc, bass, guitars, keys, horns, lead vocals, backing vocals." For processing, David uses Massenburg DesignWorks EQ Scoring mixer David Boucher