CAS Quarterly

Winter 2017

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44 W I N T E R 2 0 1 7 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y virtual version. Being an outboard box, Minkler would generally premix his dialogue and use the box as an end processor on his chain. While this is still a favorable method of use, he now cites the added bonus of being able to have multiple instances of the plugin on multiple channels in a mix. McDSP's SA-2 has just three modes: gentle, normal, and assault. The five bands are preset with the option of making them narrow, normal, wide, or vari. While running a continuous stream of pink noise through the plugin and adjusting the bands, it appears they roughly sit at around 3 kHz, 5 kHz, 7 kHz, 9 kHz, and 11 kHz. While it could be cool to, perhaps, get a numerical readout or visual in the GUI of the bands' Q parameters for my own curiosity, I find the result is noticeable, albeit gentle, and natural to the intrinsic timbre of the dialogue. Stephen Fitzmaurice CAS ( Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder, The Catch) recently added it to his dialogue chain and has been more than satisfied with his pur- chase. He explains, "Before the SA-2, I happened to use a Waves C6—which can be super precise and is still at the ready if I really need to dig into something. Tech Review SA-2 b y K a r o l U r b a n C A S M P S E T he SA-2 from McDSP is a very exciting plugin version of Mike Minkler's original SA-2, a bespoke hardware processor created for the multiple Academy Award- winning re-recording mixer, past CAS President, and CAS Career Achievement Award honoree. Minkler used his original rack unit on hundreds of films. As the box began to age, he looked for a way to translate its characteristics and usefulness into a new unit. Rather than have the unit crafted again, Minkler's friend and former mix tech, Ceri Thomas, suggested he contact McDSP to craft this plugin version. While I have heard it described simply as a de-esser, I have found it to be a much more versatile mastering tool. Minkler stated his use of the processor for McDSPTV, "When I am bringing up high end into a voice for technical reasons or artistic reasons … or when you are bringing up level, you get these spikes in level. You have to deal with those spikes. That is what this does for me." At the time of his interview with McDSP, he had used McDSP's SA-2 on Insurgent, Mr. Holmes, and a few other projects. His original box had nine fixed bands of adjustment. But after years of use, he found only five were used with any regularity, and thus only these have been translated to this When I am bringing up high end into a voice for technical reasons or artistic rea- sons … or when you are bringing up level, you get these spikes in level. You have to deal with those spikes. That is what this does for me. When I am bringing " " –Mike Minkler CAS

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