Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/187650
intact as possible, and the RX2 does a very good job of that." In addition to using the RX2 Advanced on the Watch ESPN "Vic and Steve" spots, Fielack also used it on a new series of promos for ESPN, which are short animations that use the recordings of people who had a funny experience using the Watch ESPN app. "People call in to a number where they can be recorded at ESPN and tell a funny story about a situation where they were watching ESPN using this app," Fielack explains. "They took these recordings and animated to them. I did the sound design and mix. They are these quirky :45 to :90 Web spots." Even though they asked that people find a quiet place before they call in, that typically isn't the case. Fielack notes that people often call from their cell phones, while standing on a busy sidewalk, or in other noisy environments. The RX2 Advanced has helped him to make those phone recordings more intelligible. "With the iZotope RX2 Advanced, I can really dial in and eliminate background noise while still, for the most part, keeping the voice intact. As far as noise reduction goes, Plush's Mike Vitacco works on broadcast promos and uses Spectrasonics Omnisphere. I've used quite a bit on this project." Michael Vitacco is a senior sound designer/mixer at Plush. He started as an assistant with Nutmeg Audio Post in 2000, and within two years, was sitting in the mix chair. For the past three years, he's been creating sound design and mixing mainly broadcast promos at Plush. "I tend to do a lot more sound design-heavy projects than some of the engineers here, just because that's the nature of broadcast promos," Vitacco says. "With advertising work, you might have a separate composer and sound designer, and then it's brought here for the final mix. With the broadcast projects, everything seems to happen in one place." Vitacco recently did the sound design and mix for the City Raven promo for HBO's Game of Thrones. One of Vitacco's go-to tools for sound design is the Spectrasonics Omnisphere virtual instrument plug-in, which he triggers using a Novation Impulse MIDI controller. When Vitacco really needs to filter and process the sound, especially when he wants to stretch sounds out or condense them, he'll use the OP1 synth keyboard/ controller by Teenage Engineering. "The OP1 is for when I really want to mess things up," Vitacco says. "It has some amazing filters. It allows me to filter the sound design, or sound effect elements that I use, in another unique layered way." The Teenage Engineering OP1 ($849) is a synth, sampler, sequencer, multitrack recorder, drum machine, mixer and controller all-inone. The OP1 design is very concise, so the device itself doesn't take up a lot of space. The Spectrasonics Omnisphere can easily be used for music composition, or to create sound design layers and elements. It comes with over 8,000 sounds, ranging from twolayer patches that combine a synth-oscillator and a sample-based sound to a straight-up multi-sampled instruments. You can combine up to eight patches to create custom sounds. Everything can be manipulated using a host of effects processors and modulators for endless possibilities. "It gives you the flexibility to create something that is truly unique,"Vitacco says. "There are so many parameters that can be tweaked and there are so many different sounds in its bank that you can go in so many different directions, from ambient and ethereal drones to more transient tracks with big hits, and everything in between. I use it for pretty much everything." You can get Omnisphere from the Spectrasonics Website for $499. For the Game of Thrones promos, Vitacco used Omnisphere to create sounds for the graphics as well as to create ambient textures. "Omnisphere has these elements in there that are very ethereal as well as tactile," he explains. "They're metallic and organic, and very much in line with the feel of the Game of Thrones promos that come my way. I can customize them for the spot that I'm working with. Right from the start, they're a great spring board, and great effects to have at my fingertips." In addition to Omnisphere, Vitacco will often uses his guitar to come up with sound design elements. He ran his Les Paul through a combination of analog effects, like the Moogerfooger Analog Delay and Line 6 FM 4 Filter Modeler, to create a wide variety of ambient design for the City Raven spot. "I even ran waveforms and sound effects through those analog effects and bussed them back into Pro Tools." Vitacco is another fan of Logic Pro X, especially for sound design-heavy projects that use Omnisphere or Native Instruments. With Logic, Vitacco says he can "utilize its superior MIDI capabilities and 64-bit architecture. Its newly added MIDI effects have added another layer of control and customization to what I do." The Game of Thrones promos were initially designed in Logic 9, but Vitacco has since updated to Logic Pro X. AudioEngine's New York City location features six audio suites. AUDIOENGINE Tom Goldblatt is a senior mixer at AudioEngine (http://audioengine.net) in New York. He helped start the company in 2002, along with Bob Giammarco (who now has full ownership of the studio), Rex Recker and Brian Wick. The New York location has six studios and a team of mixers. They offer sound design, custom music and mixing in all Dolby formats for advertising, broadcast and film. Goldblatt feels that AudioEngine's strength is its staff. "We have very talented mixers who know the industry and also understand what the client needs are." Goldblatt has won several awards for his commercial mixing skills. He's worked on numerous notable campaigns for Captain www.postmagazine.com Post • September 2013 35