Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/511209
SOUND DESIGN C M Y CM MY CY CMY K NUGEN_POST_3rd_vert_OL.pdf 1 3/6/15 the salvinia is choking out the life, the fish, in the lake." Back in 2010, Ribicoff helped judge a sound design competition sponsored by Blastwave FX and Avid. As a perk, Ribicoff received the Blastwave FX Bugs! Library, full of close-up recordings of insects. "It has pretty amazing, creepy insect sounds, like you have something crawling on your skin," he says. From the Bugs! Library, Ribicoff found the sounds of maggots, worms, and slimy insects, but when played straight, they were much too fast and frenetic and high-pitched. "I started thinking if I slowed it down, it might work." Using a combination of Soundminer's pitch shifter, the 'vintage' Pitch Shift in Pro Tools 10, and EQ via the Digi Channel Strip in- sert, Ribicoff created a much slower, watery, low-end effect that was the perfect compliment to the natural environments captured on-location by sound mixer Steven Bechtold. "Steven did an amazing job of recording the actual ambience on this lake at different times of the day," explains Ribicoff. "I was able to really draw from those recordings and then bury these sound library recordings within them." Ribicoff feels that one of his most invaluable tools for sound design is Soundminer. Everything he's collected and created over the years is consolidated into one library. "I'm accessing sounds through one huge Soundminer database so I'm not paying attention to where these effects are coming from," notes Ribi- coff. He auditions and flags sounds in Soundminer, then layers, processes, bends, twists, and stretches them in Pro Tools. Ribicoff, who's been work- ing in Pro Tools since the early '90s, says, "I have every bit of confidence that if I can just get it in Pro Tools, then I can make anything happen." JEEP WRANGLER POLAR VORTEX Ad agency Doner, Detroit worked with the Santa Monica division of bi-coastal sound and music compo- sition company Elias Arts on the :30 Jeep Wrangler Polar Vortex TV spot. Elias Arts tapped award-winning freelance sound designer Jay Nie- renberg, owner of Sublime Sound (www.sublimesound.tv) in Los Angeles, to craft the sound design, including a chaotic cyclone of snow and ice caused by Jeep Wrangler X Edition joyriders doing donuts in the snow. After more than 25 years in the biz, Nierenberg has amassed nearly five terabytes of custom recordings and commercial library effects, which he manages using Sound- miner. Nierenberg says he prefers custom recordings, only turning to commercial libraries when absolute- ly necessary. "Like a lot of other old- school sound designers in the indus- try, who pride themselves in trying to create things that are unique, I'm not just using sounds from sources that lots of other people go to — at least not without having done something special with those sounds in some way," he states. For example, the swirling winds in Polar Vortex combine recordings Nieren- berg captured himself from multiple locations in upstate New York and California, with recordings his col- leagues captured in Alaska. He layered those winds with pre- viously-recorded Foley of debris, ice, and snow sounds in Pro Tools 11 and used the Waves PS22 plug-in to ma- nipulate the stereo image, creating a swirling sensation for scenes inside the storm. "I tried to make drastic changes to the stereo imaging so that you really felt the movement using just the stereo environment," Nierenberg says. In addition, he used the Waves Doppler plug-in to create a sense of snow and ice flying through the air. When the Jeep stops, the storm suddenly dissipates. Nierenberg's challenge was to take a raging storm and have it end believably in a span of three seconds. Editorially, he cre- ated the de-escalation by cross-fad- ing powerful, heavy winds into light winds layered in near the end of the storm. He also extended the light de- bris effects over the scene to cover the last remnants of snow falling. For processing, he used Avid's Vari-Fi plug-in to quickly slow down the heavy wind sounds. "Vari-Fi was the most effective way to sell the storm stopping. It allowed me to bend the wind sound down to give the illusion that the storm was dying in a three- to four-second span," he says. The spot opens with news an- nouncers whose broadcast signal is affected by the storm. Nierenberg Ribicoff (pictured) used the Blastwave FX Bugs! Library on the documentary Uncertain.