Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/54443
Unsun Audio Gear Tools that make pros' lives easier and their work better. By Jennifer Walden Luke Skywalker had C-3PO. B.B. King had his guitar, Lucille. Elvis had the Shure 55S. Dr. Edward Morbius had Robby the Robot. Through- out history, and fiction, technology has lent itself to being a faithful sidekick. It's helpful, handy, and hard working. Often, we spend more time with our gear than with our family, so why not give our favorite pieces of gear an appreciative nod. Wheth- er it provides consistency, spawns creativity, or allows us to hit homeruns from crazy client curve balls, the gear we use helps to keep things running smooth. OUTPOST STUDIOS Dave Nelson is the CEO and supervising sound editor/composer at Outpost Studios (www.outpostfilm.com) in San Francisco. Out- post creates original music and sound design for feature-length films, documentaries, commercials, promos, animations and videogames. They also provide audio post services such as editing, Dolby 5.1 mix- ing, ADR and Foley. Nelson was supervising sound editor/composer on One Way to Valhalla, which premiered on Showtime in January. Nelson's composing experience with Native Instrument's Kontakt (www.native-instruments.com) led him to use the sampling software for his sound design. Over the past year, Nelson has incorporated Kontakt 5 into his sound design workflow. "I have been changing the way I do sound design, more toward MIDI sound design in Kontakt 5. The sound design becomes much more adaptable to the music and picture, because the events in time all stay the same but I can easily swap out sounds. What I find so great about making an instrument in Kontakt 5, is if there are any problems, or when the music is added and the sound effects don't quite fit, I can just change the sound in MIDI, or alter it, pitch it; I don't have to replace everything. Another key aspect is the length of the sound. If I find a sound I like and it's too short or too long, I can just drag the MIDI note longer or shorter instead of finding a new sound. In the old style of sound design, where 34 Post • February 2012 everything is an actual file, all that stuff is much more cumbersome and clunky to do. Using Kontakt 5 for sound design is flexible up to the last minute. Now, all the computer MIDI programming, MIDI volume and MIDI effects are so consistent and reliable that I find I'll just leave things in MIDI right up to the final mix." Kontakt 5 ($399) is the latest version of Native Instrument's soft- ware sampler. It can be used as a standalone application or plug-in. Kontakt 5 comes with 43GB of samples, and over 1,000 instruments. It also includes EQ, filtering, compression and tape saturation simulation. Another addition to this latest version is Time Machine Pro, which allows you to time-stretch samples with- out losing the integrity of the sound. Currently, Nelson is working on a five-minute promotional video for Duarte Design that focuses on attract- ing businesses and jobs to Long Island, NY. Using Kontakt 5 allows Nelson to easily alter the sound design. "Duarte Design uses a lot of animation. There are a lot of pen movements in this project. The client and I had a long discussion about what those sounds are going to be so I am able to send them a temp of the sound that I've cho- sen, and if they want a different sound, I can just make a new instrument and all the events stay in the same place in time." Though Nelson mostly works on feature length films, his work on shorter projects allows him to experiment with new tech- nology and techniques, and then apply any new approaches back to his feature-length projects. Recently, Nelson used Kontakt 5 for the www.postmagazine.com