NEWS

344 Audio has recently been contacted late last year by Netflix to provide full Audio Post services for their recently released documentary: 'Inside the UK's Rapidly Changing Drag Industry'.

The documentary was released on Netflix's 'Still Watching' YouTube channel, where bonus content is uploaded daily. In just 5 days, the documentary has nearly hit 200k views!

Check out the trailer here:

The documentary reveals the true, unfiltered reality of living as a drag artist. The show travels all around the UK and interviews some of Ru Paul's most famous Drag artists. Here's the synopsis:

In summer 2021, legendary RuPaul's Drag Race UK drag queens including The Vivienne, Tia Kofi, Tayce, and Cheryl Hole went on tour. Joined by drag kings and non-binary performers including host Brent Would and performer Sigi Moonlight, they were touring the country with Netflix's I Like To Watch Live. We captured everything. In Be Here, Be Queer, an exclusive documentary, we take an unfiltered look at the reality of being a drag artist and find out how LGBT+ venues are surviving Covid.

344 Audio was able to allow the Director and Producer to patch in remotely from their London studio and provide comments and feedback in real-time while working on the documentary in Manchester.

We really enjoyed working on this project and hope to be involved in future projects with Netflix!

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344 has just received word that their ‘Ultimate Chess SFX’ pack has been used extensively on one of Australia’s most popular children's shows: 'Bluey'.

The show follows the adventures of a six-year-old Blue Heeler puppy who lives with her family. In each episode, Bluey plays elaborate games that unfold in unpredictable ways.

In Season 3 Episode 11 (Chest), Bluey plays a game of Chess so 344's library was perfect! The entire episode is about chess, so the pack was used extensively throughout.

Here's what the Sound Designer thought of our pack while he was using it:

The Ultimate Chess Library was incredibly useful for me. The sounds were tightly recorded and each had a real character to them. There are plenty of variations, with clear and descriptive track names.

- Dan Brumm

There's is a high potential that Bluey will be released on Disney and the BBC very soon, so the team are looking forward to hearing the sound in action!

On behalf of everyone at 344, we would love to say a huge thank you for using our sounds! Check out the Chess library here: https://www.344audio.com/product-page/ultimate-chess-sfx

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The team at 344 Audio are always on the prowl for new and exciting plug-ins. We especially love unique ones that help us do our jobs more effectively and efficiently. From many years of experience, we have developed a critical ear in assessing the quality and usefulness of a plug-in.

Today will be reviewing a plug-in by Accentize called: Chameleon Intelligent Reverb. It listens to a sound source and extracts its reverb. This reverb can then be placed onto another recording. As you can imagine, this is perfect for dialogue and ADR editing where recording has been performed in different spaces. Here's the description provided by the website:

Chameleon is an intelligent audio plug-in that uses artificial neural networks to estimate and model the exact reverb content of any source recording. You can build a reverb profile in seconds and easily apply it to dry studio recordings.

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Company: Accentize

Product: Chameleon

Price: €149 (≈ £125)

Our Rating: 4.5/5

Branding

Firstly, a comment on the website and branding. We were very impressed by the sleek and modern layout of the website. It is straightforward to navigate. There are some great audio examples of what the plug-in is capable of and some easy guides for operating the plug-in inside Pro Tools. The descriptions are easy to read, very handy and to the point. We loved the logo for the plug-in and the fact that you can try it for free before purchasing. We believe that the price of this product is more than fair. We don't think you'll find a plug-in of this quality for any lower prices.

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Powerful machine learning technology

Upon installing and loading up the plug-in, we were surprised that there wasn't a 'learn' button. As indicated in their very useful tutorial video on their website, they have been asked before how to get Chameleon to listen and 'learn' the reverb on a given source, so it's not a completely straightforward plug-in. However, after watching the quick start guide, we easily worked out the rest of the plug-in's features. You can get Chameleon to listen to a source by clicking on the plus button to add a reverb profile. You then have to click the preview button in the bottom left to play the selected clip. It was a little annoying as we had to listen to the source a few times whilst Chameleon was analysing. If the source clip is quite short, you will have to listen to it repetitively until the plug-in has finished analysing it. The alternative is to click 'render' on the bottom right, which works much faster and with no sound. One would assume that letting Chameleon listen in real-time would provide a more accurate reverb profile, so both methods have pros and cons.

Once the plug-in has finished its analysis, it will automatically set the Dry/Wet mix for you and any other parameters. We found that the Dry/Wet mix was always between 2-5%, but you can easily edit these parameters after the initial analysis. If the name of the reverb profile is coloured in red, we believe it's because the source clip wasn't long enough, but Chameleon still produced an impressive profile! When using the plug-in in Audio Suite, you simply have to click on another clip and render the result. The results were subtle but brilliant! We were very impressed with the result.

It is important to remember that it's not always an instant fix though. Perhaps using some EQ in conjunction with the reverb may help too.

Accentize's Guide to Using Chameleon in Pro Tools

Creative Capabilities

The sound of the reverb itself is quite basic; however, it was natural. We compared some of the generated reverbs to D-Verb to see the difference and found that D-Verb did sound more 'glammed up' but was not an accurate representation of the reverb we were trying to mimic. We really enjoyed the fact that you can save these profiles for future use too, but as they are very specific profiles, we probably wouldn't use them again. The plug-in also works as an insert which is great if you need to mimic the sound of a room for multiple clips.

As creative sound designers, we also tested this plug-in to see how it performed creatively and experimentally. We loved the reverse reverb feature in the plug-in. Achieving the same result in Pro Tools would take a few more steps, so this feature in Chameleon speeds up the process for us, a big plus. We imagined using this function for ghostly sound effects, for example. We also told Chameleon to analyse a dry source to see what it came up with. The reverb profile was quite metallic, which we really enjoyed. This would be a great example of when we would save the profile for future use. Although these creative techniques are not its intended purpose, we would love to see more manipulation capabilities in this plug-in.

The Bottom Line

Overall, we think this plug-in is a great testament to how the audio repair industry is moving forward. It's great to see smaller companies produce such fantastic machine learning plug-ins. Chameleon is very straightforward to use, with few settings, but we saw this as a positive as the machine learning technology was so good. It is a powerful plug-in at a very reasonable price.

For more on Chameleon and Accentize, as well as their website and purchase information, follow this link: https://www.accentize.com/chameleon/

We hope you enjoyed this review!

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After the brilliant response to our Halloween Video, we decided to create a fun and interesting behind the scenes look into Christmas Sound Design, magical sounds that make you feel right at home.

During the making of this video, we put together a FREE Sample Library utilising the sounds we've created. Get them here:

https://www.facebook.com/344audio/posts/1946674235556164

If you enjoyed this article please check out our ultimate guide to audio post- production: https://www.344audio.com/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-audio-post-production-sound-design

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This weekend we were down in London for the premiere of the film Mad Lord: Samurai of 1000 Deaths, directed by Samuel Smith. We supervised the entire Post Sound and completed all sound effects, design, and mixing. This project was tons of fun to work on, as it combined a historical setting with intense action and psychological elements.

Synopsis: When a great samurai Lord's mind becomes infected by devils his loving Sokushitsu comes to his aid. Knowing that their weakness will soon be taken advantage of by the neighbouring rebel army. Sokushitsu demands that General Ekei travels to the borders of the Shoguns palace to collect some illegally acquired medicine. The General returns from his mission with more than a cure to the Lord's madness, he brings evidence of treachery, witchcraft, and rebellion.

The premiere screening took place at House of Vans London. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a welcome party of 2 Samurai in full armour!

As the Lord's mental state slowly begins to unravel throughout the film, we used sound design to give the audience a taste of his fractured psyche. We used a blend of natural sounds and field recordings from Asia and Japan with hyper-real effects that hinted at the Lord’s madness.

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Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do here at 344 Audio, so we attend premieres and screenings wherever possible to support the amazing filmmakers that we work with.It was incredible to see the film in its completed state and to network with many of the London based production crew. The response to the film was extremely positive, and Samuel the director discussed the potential developing Mad Lord into a feature-length project in the future.

2 Samurai warriors engage in single combat during one of the film's battle scenes.

To top the whole experience off, we were treated to a live performance of the score from London based rock-n-roll band Steak. They played the score live over the film as it was running which really added to the atmosphere of the film!

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We really enjoyed attending this premiere and supporting Mad Lord. If you want to find out more info about the film and the people involved please follow the following links:

https://www.samuelsmithdirector.com/mad-lord-samurai-of-1000-deaths

https://www.samuelsmithdirector.com/about

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9689694/

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