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30 Post • June 2014 www.postmagazine.com literally cried. That was one moment she was most worried about in sound. She just loved that sound effect," says Benitez. All the pre- sets and editing Benitez and the audio team did for Frozen were saved via the EuCon, a high-speed Ethernet protocol developed by Euphonix to allow a hardware control sur- face to directly communicate with a software application. All the mixing and editing was done at Disney Studios on an ICON. It was delivered to the Euphonix System 5 on Dub Stage A at Disney with all the Pro Tools auto- mation still intact. "That sound effect basically stayed the same from the moment we achieved it in our sound design playback all the way to the final playback of the film," explains Benitez. Also for Frozen, Benitez and his audio team captured multichannel recordings at Lake Convict, in the Sherwin Range of the Sierra Nevada in California. Using hydro- phones, they recorded resonant underwater ice impacts that naturally occur when the sun hits the frozen lake surface, breaking it into ice sheets that hit against each other. They placed three hydrophones under the ice, one was 50 feet from the first, and the other was a hundred yards out and at a different depth. The hydrophones closer to the surface yielded a sound with a little more cracking in it, and the one that was deeper, near the edge of the lake, had a more resonate twanging sound. "It almost sounds like laser blasts from Star Wars," he says. "It's compa- rable to when you tap a metal hammer on a wire. It's that same resonant vibration, but it's happening on an ice sheet and the sound is traveling hundreds of yards down the lake." He also recorded the sound of a sword scraping and hitting against the frozen lake surface. After a few too many impacts out in the cold, the sword shattered. "I had no idea the sword would shatter when it got that cold," he continues. "I used that sword-shat- tering sound at the end of the film when Hans hits Anna's frozen hand and the sword shatters. It was actually my son's sword, but luckily he wasn't mad I broke it." Even with multitrack editing, and the ability to layer sounds, Benitez would like to have an easy-to-use, high-quality sound-morphing program, that can take two sounds, and blend one into another. "Visually, you can turn a tiger face into a human face and see all the steps in between. There aren't any good sound morphing programs, or plug-ins, that do that," explains Benitez. He recalls working on Barn- yard in 2006, where he had to turn a human laugh into a coyote growl. "It all had to be done by hand. I tried to turn a scream into a train whistle and that was really difficult, too. Symbolic Sound's Kyma sound design soft- ware is the best morphing program I've heard, but it's expensive and the program is very difficult to use," says Benitez. He'd also like to see a new synthesizer/sampler, ala the Synclavier by New England Digital Corpora- tion. He's used Native Instruments' Kontakt in the past, but feels it's still too clunky. "It would be great to have a synthesizer/sampler that's fantastic, easy and intuitive, that can quickly and easily integrate into Pro Tools. That would be my dream," he says. BRYAN O. WATKINS — WARNER BROS. GAME AUDIO Bryan O. Watkins is an award-winning supervising sound editor/sound designer for Warner Bros. Game Audio in Burbank, CA (http://www.warnerbros.com/). He spends his time designing sound for both films and AAA game titles. Watkins was recently nomi- nated for a Game Developers Choice Award for Best Audio for Saints Row IV. Three advancements in audio post technology have had a signifi- cant impact on Watkins' approach to sound design. First, having power- ful synthesis tools to manipulate sounds, either within Pro Tools using Native Instruments' Reaktor, or in a standalone application, his favorite for the last 10 years being Meta- Synth by U&I Software. In Meta- Synth, there are six "rooms" for creating and manipulating sound, but Watkins typically only uses three: the Image Synth, the Effects Room, and the Image Filter Room. He can load any sound into MetaSynth and change it in every way imaginable. "In sound design and sound editing, you don't have the time to play around for days and days with tools," he says. "MetaSynth for me was the beginning of hav- ing a tool that made really unique, interesting sounds fast." Another game changer for Watkins was the ability to record at 192kHz, in the field or in the studio, with high-res mics, like the Sennheiser MKH 800, that has an extended frequency response up to 50kHz. Watkins explains that if you're slowing down or pitch- ing down recordings, all the high frequency material comes down too. So in the old days of recording vocals with a Neumann U87, when the vocals were pitched down, it would sound like it was rolled off, because the microphone rolled off at 18kHz. "Now, when you record a vocal for a creature at 192k with a Sennheiser MKH 800, that gives you all these incredible high-frequency har- monics," says Watkins. "The end result doesn't sound like it was pitched. It actually sounds like a creature." According to Watkins, sound designers in the past used tools that weren't specifically created for sound design; but that's changing. Watkins says, "These young guys that are really into Cycling 74's Max/MSP are writing software that is helping all of us." He also points to Twisted Tools' S-Layer, a sample layering sound creation tool for Native Instruments Reaktor 5 that allows users to create, edit and play new sound combina- tions. Another company Watkins likes is Meltedsounds. They create tools specifically for sound designers, such as a software pro- gram for Native Instruments Reaktor 5.8 (or later) called Whoosh, used for creating unique whoosh and pass-by effects. "You can put your own sounds in, so you don't have to have a typical white noise whoosh. That's an incredibly effective tool for sound design," he says. Watkins would like to see more synthesis tools that make sound effects, particularly for vehicle sounds. He explains, "Some vehicles sound so good in games that other sound supervisors, who work in film, are saying, 'If I could playback a game like Need for Speed, and record the output of me driving, I could take those effects and put them in my movie. It would be so easy.' So maybe the future is continued on page 46 Bryan O. Watkins (seated) and John Fasal. Key sounds for Frozen were created using Serato's Pitch n' Time and Audio Ease's Altiverb.