Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/571027
www.postmagazine.com 33 POST SEPTEMBER 2015 rom the reliable iZotope RX 4 Advanced to the newly-designed Avid S6 console, these audio post pros talk about their favorite pieces of gear. Find out what they're using and how they used it to help complete their latest projects. AVID S6 Although Sony Pictures Post re-recording mixers Steve Pederson and Daniel Leahy have mixed several projects together over the years, including Southpaw, The Equalizer, and Training Day, their recent mix on HBO's True Detective series was the first time they've mixed together on the new Avid S6 console. "The Avid S6 is just now getting into Hollywood as the new console surface in the re-recording world. Six months ago, this board really wasn't active anywhere," says Pederson, who handled the dialogue and music on True Detective. Pederson has been working 'in-the- box' via an Avid ICON for several years and his first impression of the Avid S6 was that it feels more like a tradition- al console, and less like a workstation. "The Icon D-Command and D-Control work surfaces were born out of digital audio workstation editors wanting to touch something tactile, and not just do everything with a keyboard and mouse. Those surfaces came along almost as an afterthought to the workstation," states Pederson. "The Avid S6 is more remi- niscent of the culture of the traditional board. You're still dealing with the work- station, and it's the same concept of mix- ing in the box, but the S6 is a real effort to have a console surface as opposed to a workstation surface." The Avid S6 (www.avid.com) com- bines the best features of the Euphonix/ Avid System 5 console and the Avid ICON, but one advantage over the ICON is the amount of visual feedback the S6 offers. "Avid really took the time to pay a lot of attention to the TFT displays that give you such detail. You get the track waveform, the track name, and everything is color-coded as it is in a session," says Pederson. "When I set up my sessions, everything is color-coded. It helps the eye go to things quicker. The S6 console and its meters display that for you. It's a lot of visual feedback, and that is terrific." Effects/backgrounds/Foley re-record- ing mixer Leahy, who typically works with over 300 tracks at a time, likes having all his session information, color-coded, on the console in front of him. "After being a very traditional mixer for the past 30 years, I'm a big proponent of the S6. We never lose the work that we started with in the temp dub, and we can take that all the way through the final mix. I think it is a fantastic, new way to go," he says. While mixing True Detective on the Avid S6, Pederson and Leahy were able to work on the same episode simultaneously, independent of each other, with Pederson cleaning dialogue over headphones on one side of the board, and Leahy pre-mixing the effects, backgrounds, and Foley over the speakers in the theater. "We could work independently of each other, each being at our own place in the session for that episode," says Pederson. He notes that with a traditional console, they'd have to work on the same section together. Pederson would pre-mix the dialogue and music, and then stop working while Leahy pre-mixed the effects. But with the Avid S6, Pederson says, "We could work at the same time in different places on the reel." Once Leahy was happy with the effects pre-mix, he used headphones to finesse his edits while Pederson pre-mixed dialogue and music over the theater speakers. "We only had a few days to prep the mix. I don't think we could have done it any other way. The S6 is part of this workflow culture that we are heading into where you can do multiple things at the same time." Pederson will be mixing the upcom- ing Screen Gems film, When the Bough Breaks, on the newly-installed Avid S6 in the Anthony Quinn Theater at Sony Pictures Post (www.sonypictures.com) in Culver City, CA. "It's the first of what I think will be many S6 consoles at Sony," says Pederson. "The S6 console design has a more traditional feel, but with amazing displays. Having so much information in front of us, there is hope that [we] mixers can focus on the theater screen and the console, with less diversion to the comput- er screen. It's the board of tomorrow and it represents the workflow culture that we are all going toward." IZOTOPE RX 4 ADVANCED Across the pond in London, freelance sound editor Lucy Johnstone (www. lucyjsound.com) is one to watch — or rather, hear. Named a Broadcast Hot Shot in 2013 (a distinction given to rising stars in the broadcast industry who are under 30 years old), she's lent her talent to several popular TV series, including Gold Rush: Alaska, Dark Matters: Twisted But True, and Top Gear, as well as the award-winning short film Knit Me Some Happiness that recently aired on BBC Two, and the animated short Magarwasi, honored with the 2015 Best Sound award at IBSFF (an international student film festival held in Michigan). Johnstone often uses the iZotope RX 4 Advanced (www.izotope.com) audio resto- ration software in her workflow, choosing the Dialogue Denoiser for 'factual' work, i.e. documentaries and reality series, to help clean-up background noise. Additionally, Johnstone finds the Ambience Match fea- ture equally helpful on factual projects. "People are talking so quickly and you F Sony Pictures Post's (inset, L-R) Steve Pederson and Daniel Leahy put Avid's S6 console to use on the HBO series True Detective.