NEWS

The number of young adults graduating with music technology degrees is constantly increasing worldwide. In an already competitive industry, securing industry experience has never been more challenging than now. Do not fear, though! This guide will give you some essential direction in securing a job or industry experience in the world of audio post-production. As a current intern at 344 audio, I will offer my experience in hunting for placements and share some tips that I have found especially useful along the way.

If you're a music technology student looking for placement in the next academic year, it's never too early to start looking. I started hunting for companies in January, hoping to start in September. It is crucial to establish what kind of work you want to do and if it relates to your course. In this industry, though, you may not be able to be as picky as you'd like. I was fortunate enough to secure a placement in Sound Design, but I applied for many different positions across the audio world. Everything from radio to live sound to working in a recording studio. Applying for a range of roles gives you a greater chance to find work. However, if you start the search early, you should be able to develop an extensive list of companies that you'd enjoy working with. I started looking for companies in the South of the UK, where I lived and worked up the country. For me, the easiest way to find said companies was to begin in google maps and search for 'sound design'. This gave me a pretty large number of companies that I could take a note of so I could look through their websites later. Find as many businesses in areas you feel comfortable working in and form a list. I liked to use a colour coding system in the list, so I knew which companies said no, which companies I was awaiting a response from, and which ones were currently interested in me.

Once you've found a list of relevant companies, it's time to make sure you're prepared before contacting them. I found that a lot of companies asked me for a 'showreel'. This could be any University/College tasks that you have completed as well as other work that you have completed outside of your studies. It's essential to include anything relevant in your showreel from outside your studies as this shows genuine interest and passion for the company's line of work. If you include work you had to do for your course, many people reading your emails won't find you interesting enough and may not even respond to you. I presented my showreel as a list of private YouTube links inside a playlist. Rather than embedding multiple videos in every email I sent, I could copy a link into the text and have everything in one place. This saved me time and made my email much more concise as I could include a description of my work in the YouTube videos, rather than having them in the email. The other thing that is essential to include in your CV. I would write your CV and then export it as a .pdf to ensure that all can read it. It would also be great to include a link to your LinkedIn account. This will show your seriousness in finding work. Taking the time to build a strong LinkedIn profile can only help your chances to succeed! Finally, make sure you have spent some time looking at the company's website to watch/listen to some of their previous work. It will be handly to include something personal in your email; otherwise, you'll be sending the same email repeatedly, and people will spot this. Recycling the same email is a big no-no. Sure, you should have a similar structure each time, but the studios you'll be applying for will most likely receive similar emails every day, so you need to make yours stand out.

So, what should be included in your email?

First of all, DO NOT start your email with ' Dear Sir/Madame'. This makes your email very generic and may show the receiver that you haven't taken the time to research the business. Use their name (if it's evident in their email address), or use the company name. Make sure you spell the name correctly! In my email, I found it helpful to show genuine interest in the business, so it may help to include a friendly message before talking about yourself. Then you'll need to make the purpose of your email clear and give a brief explanation of your current position (e.g. 2nd-year student at University). After that, you mustn't just demand what you want to gain from their company. How are you going to help them? The internship needs to be mutually beneficial. Make sure that you positively comment on any work that the company has provided on their website. This will show that you've taken time to explore their social media/website and will show genuine interest. Another tip would be to make sure that you don't exaggerate any skills that you have. Just be honest. This will save both your and their time. Finally, after you've pasted any links for your portfolio and uploaded your CV, you can let them know that you're looking forward to hearing from them and leave it there.

It may be appropriate to send a 'follow up' email a few days later, but avoid using the words 'follow up'. You don't want to send these emails too early, but don't leave it too late either. I stuck to around 3-5 working days. When I sent these emails, they were very short and to the point. It may also help to copy the original email, so the recipient doesn't have to scroll back through their emails to find yours. Let them know that you're happy to discuss your CV further or answer any questions they have over the phone. If they still don't respond, then it's probably best to leave it. There will be lots of companies that don't respond, but it's important not to let that lower your spirits. Just move on to the next opportunity!

I hope this helped anyone who is looking to kickstart their career in the audio industry!

When working as a Sound Designer or Composer, it is absolutely crucial to work with the same people more than once, particularly if you want to achieve a high level of success creatively.

This article highlights one of our long term collaborators Ed Halstead, who has been with us from the beginning, we have been in the Sound or Music department on every film that he has Directed so far. We are now working on our 6th project together.

Creative Shorthand

One of the big benefits of our repeat collaboration is that we have developed a creative shorthand, where Ed knows our terminology and we know his, making getting to the approval stage much quicker. We also can be totally honest with each other when something is working great or needs more finessing.

As Ed has grown from his humble beginnings in student films all the way up to multiple professional projects as a Director, we have grown with him. This repeat business has allowed us the opportunity to work on some excellent award winning films.

Recent Projects

After moving to Los Angeles from the UK, Ed hired us to work on his first two films in the new country; 1UP and Broken Strings. We mainly worked with him remotely, although he did visit the UK to complete part of the work for 1UP. The move to LA really helped Ed progress in the scale of his productions, which meant that we had some interesting creative challenges.

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For 1UP we were tasked with creating sound assets for a video game to be featured in the film, and then to integrate these with the film world. 1UP went on to win multiple awards including Best Director at Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards.

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For Broken Strings we were tasked with designing sound for the drug induced, euphoria state of the protagonist. Broken Strings went on to achieve multiple festival selections, and one of the characters was used to develop a web series.

What's Next

Perhaps the most exciting news to come from all of this, is that one of the two web series that Ed has been developing has now received interest from a major Los Angeles cable network.

This meteoric progression has happened over the course of just 4 years, which is a clear reminder as to why you should always strive to work with Director's again and again, following their climb through the ranks and getting to work on such exciting projects.

Check out the trailer for 1UP below:

Software plugins like Izotope RX, Cedar DNS One and Klevgrand Brusfri have saved Dialogue Editors and Post Production professionals hundreds of hours in ADR sessions over the years, by reducing the presence of excessive noise in production dialogue.

While these tools are extremely helpful, how far can you push them until they are more of a hindrance than help to your overall dialogue track?

How It Works

Noise Reduction (NR) plugins employ a variety of techniques to help remedy audio issues. This usually involves EQ, gating, expansion and phase reversal of unwanted portions of the signal. Results can vary extensively, which is why it is useful to try multiple passes of NR software on challenging material.

To Reduce or Not to Reduce?

With this technology available at the click of a button, it is tempting to apply NR to every bit of dialogue that comes your way. Unfortunately, anything above an 8dB reduction in noise (material dependant) usually results in artefacts or tonal changes that the audience may notice. Because of the processes involved in NR software, some of the intelligibility of dialogue can be affected, as we are usually left with more mid frequencies in our signal after processing.

Not only can this make the dialogue sound ‘washed out’, but it can also leave us with nasty resonances that are more damaging to the mix than the original noise. While it is possible to then correctively EQ these frequencies, you will then end up with dialogue with much less weight and clarity.

Alternative Options

You can help reduce noise more effectively with the use of multi-step processing. If you are time limited, this can just consist of multiple smaller passes of NR, for example 2 x 4dB passes rather than a single 8dB pass. This will usually introduce less artefacts. Ideally though, you will want to incorporate different plugins into the chain, so that you are using smaller amounts of multiple processes. For example, our chain often includes a high pass filter, high shelf EQ, expander, transient shaper, NR and volume automation to attenuate noise when speech isn’t present. Although much more automation and manual processing will be needed, you will find your NR is far more transparent, and won’t ruin your dialogue tracks for audiences.

Try building an NR signal chain into your dialogue editing template and see what you can come up with!

How much noise reduction is too much, and what are your favourite tips and tricks? Comment below.

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Most of us today cannot live without music. Whether we are taking a break between tasks at the office or relaxing at home, we need to listen to music. Many of us even need music to concentrate on work. It has been more than 140 years now since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, the home audio system has seen a major evolvement since then and has come a very long way. In the beginning, they were pretty big and had horns, but as the technology improved, the instrument got smaller and smaller and the quality of sound got better and better. Today you can listen to whatever music you can on high definition on devices like the Alexa powered echoor the HomePod directly, or also on your Bluetooth speakers.

However, the journey that the home audio systems took is long and an interesting one and those who love music and technology will love reading about how the home audio system evolved over the years.  From its inception as phonautograph in 1857, the home audio system improved with the invention of newer and better technology and the changes can be seen every other decade. This invention was an important one as the music came to live in every house and every business place. We cannot imagine life without our home audio systems, it has become an integral part of society.

As beautiful as the gramophone from 1888 was and took the world by storm, the in-car radios from the 1950s revolutionized the music world totally. The ability to listen to music on the move was revolutionary. The headphones invented in 1958 brought a whole new revolution and later on in the 1980s we could see people moving around with their Walkman connected to headphones. Well, it is a long and exciting history, and instead of telling all about it in the introduction, we prefer letting you enjoy the history of how the home audio system evolved through this infographic from VPOnline.

Check out this new article that we wrote for Pro Sound Effects!

https://blog.prosoundeffects.com/top-5-ways-to-improve-the-sound-of-your-mixing-room

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