The Sound of the Olympics/Sports

It was no surprise to me to find out that the audio on sports programming is a mix of real sounds and samples. The experience for the audience comes from sound design at its finest. I first learned how sports sound design was created while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, 99% Invisible. I found that episode particularly interesting because I had just started doing sound design for a film.

With the Olympics approaching, there was an article written about how the sound design is created. Links to the article and the 99% Invisible podcast show below.

Sound of the Olympics

Sound of Sport

Music In the Digital Age

The debate and discussions regarding young people building their music library by swapping tracks with friends, file sharing and illegally downloading music is not new. About a month ago, an NPR intern wrote a post titled "I Never Owned Any Music To Begin With." Again, there was no news here, but it sparked a huge internet debate that really illuminates how society has changed.

On one hand, not paying for music is hurting the artists and many of our professions/future professions as a whole. On the other, it lets us know that the current model doesn't work because it is no longer the way that people want to experience music. The last two lines of the article says it all, "All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?"

I don't have any solutions, but I found this article and the response on the internet to be extremely interesting. Personally, I find it kind of sad and disappointing that consumers are no longer supporting music in the same way as the past, but that shows a change in times. I recently got back into listening to vinyl records and it is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my life. listening to records, looking at all of the album art and trying to figure out how the musicians in conjunction with the engineers and producers made those sounds is one of my favorite things to do. I realize that I'm an outlier.

In any case, check out these articles and form your own opinions. At a minimum, they are quick and informative.


The original article written by NPR Intern:
I Never Owned Any Music to Begin With


How Much Does A Band Earn From Each Music Platform?


Where To Buy Music To Get More Cents On The Dollar To The Musician


Owning Music In the Digital Age

Hope you enjoy the reads!

Compression Article

It has been a while since my last post. It was a busy end of year working on student thesis projects and studio maintenance. I will be including some small write ups about those end of year projects. I just stumbled across this article compression. I think that it is a good read to understand the very basics of compression.

Understanding Compression

Drum Overhead Techniques

Great article i passed today. I think I read it many years ago too, but it does a good job of describing different overhead drum techniques with sound examples.

Overhead Drum Techniques Compared

Fixed knobs in Audio Studio

The lowest frequency selection switch on the Chandler Curvebender and the gain control on the Mercury M72 preamp have been fixed. Thank Dave for those two!

Channel 20 in Audio Studio

Channel 20 in the Audio Studio is on the fritz. It makes lots of random crackling noises. We'll troubleshoot and likely swap out the channel as soon as we can. For now, I'd recommend muting the channel and not using it.

Bad Channels in EMS B

There are 3 fader 1 channels in EMS B that do not work as expected. They are channels 2, 22 and 27. Channels 2 and 22 have gone bad at the EQ. If you bypass the console EQ, you will gain access to these channels again. You can do this by simply pressing the blue "byp" button underneath the EQ. Further troubleshooting needs to happen on channel 27.