most strangest recording jobs?

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The Maillard Reaction
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2009/02/19 21:41:58 (permalink)

most strangest recording jobs?

Is there room on the most band wagon?

I had a really interesting gig the last two days. I did sound for a video doc with brain surgeons today. The primary surgeon demonstrated two different techniques for removing parts of the skull and gaining access to the optic nerves and some sinus areas.

Lucky for me... we were working with a cadaver... because I'm sorta squeamish about other peoples pain etc.



The sounds of the various procedures were powerfully suggestive.



Do you have a strange recoding job memory to share?


#1

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    jinga8
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/19 22:03:16 (permalink)
    Well, it wasn't a job, but this happened to me a couple years ago (just a copy and paste of my old post):

    I left for work on Monday at about 9 after playing around with some of the new features of S6PE. When I got home (about 5:30pm) I went to my computer and realized that I had left Sonar recording on a track through a mike in my attic apartment ALL DAY (8.5 hours). Well I figured I'd just delete the clip and move on, but as I scrolled through it I saw that it wasn't all flatlined. Hmm... So I listened a little and heard the usual cars going by (I live on a busy street) and doors opening and shutting downstairs, but there were also several sounds that I couldn't explain. Well, I don't believe in anything (ghosts, spirits, whatever) paranormal, so I isolated the clips and played around with gain and eq until I could discern their nature. Turns out two of my housemates have a key to my apartment and decided to "let themselves in" to see what I had to eat, drink, etc. This rang a bell, as sometimes a beer or coke will magically "disappear" when I get home at night. So I confronted them with my "evidence" and they admitted that they go in almost daily. We had a house meeting last night and both of them will be looking for other living arrangements. THANKS SONAR!!! (mostly I'm glad they didn't steal anything of value)
    #2
    The Maillard Reaction
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/19 22:34:21 (permalink)
    The name SONAR takes on new meaning. :-)


    #3
    keith
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/19 23:38:11 (permalink)

    ORIGINAL: jinga8
    So I confronted them with my "evidence" and they admitted that they go in almost daily. We had a house meeting last night and both of them will be looking for other living arrangements. THANKS SONAR!!! (mostly I'm glad they didn't steal anything of value)


    Ha! You should send this to the marketing department... see if they can use it. It's quite the endorsement! BTW, I think you violated a federal law...
    #4
    blinduncledallas
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/20 02:40:59 (permalink)

    ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

    Is there room on the most band wagon?

    I had a really interesting gig the last two days. I did sound for a video doc with brain surgeons today. The primary surgeon demonstrated two different techniques for removing parts of the skull and gaining access to the optic nerves and some sinus areas.

    Lucky for me... we were working with a cadaver... because I'm sorta squeamish about other peoples pain etc.



    The sounds of the various procedures were powerfully suggestive.



    Do you have a strange recoding job memory to share?


    About a year ago I was drinking in a local pub. There was a performance poetry group upstairs doing their thing. I just had a flash of (I thought) genius and went upstairs and introduced myself to them. I said I had a studio up the road and if anyone would like a CD doing, my rates are low, my house is comfortable and just call me if you are interested. I was thinking it could be some sort of lucrative endeavour to help pay for studio gear e.t.c.

    Anyway, I got a call the next day from this guy. He wanted to come round and do a CD. I said cool, gave him a flat price for a few hours and a Master CD and booked for him to come round. My studio is basically our second bedroom which I've taken over and converted.

    This guy shows up and is a MASSIVE, gothy looking guy in a long trenchcoat. Really surly looking and something about him put me totally on edge. I know mental illness and I could see it in this guy straight away. I didn't remember him from the group thing and asked him how he know about me. He said one of the group had passed on my number. 'Ok. I thought.' Lets get on with it. I took him into the studio and tried being friendly and chatty and this guy was just really weird. Wouldn't look me in the eye, looked really uncomfortable and I passed it off as 'recording' nerves'. He'd hardly said a word to me. I just got on with it. I'd already set up the mic and done all the prep in Sonar and was ready to go. Anyway, I pressed record, gave him the thumbs up and off he went. ' RANTING AND SCREAMING RAHH RA HA RAAHHHH' Just totally mental. My wife even ran up the stairs because she thought a fight had broken out between us. She was absolutely terrified. I was too but I was half expecting something like this from him. Anyway, this nightmare session lasted over 2 hours. He made do drop-ins on various 'screams' and f**ks e.t.c. that he said he'd messed up! I gently brought the session to an end and said I'd mix it and meet him in a couple of days to give him the CD. He threateningly insisted that I did it there and then. I said no, me and the wife have to go out. I managed to get rid of him and made a meeting time. Me and my wife just listened to this absolute barrage of hate and anguish for a minute or two in silence then just cracked up laughing. That is the last time I have someone over to record in my own house. It wasn't even intelligible performance art which I could understand. You know, punk poetry which I respect. I also realise I put my wife in potential danger from this man.

    He paid me too. And even rang me a few days after I gave him the CD to thank me. I had caught his 'vision' perfectly.
    #5
    The Maillard Reaction
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/20 07:26:03 (permalink)
    Ha,

    You should release it... it could be huge!

    You just described the reason I don't hang a shingle. I like to be hard to find :-).



    best,
    mike


    #6
    Fog
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/20 17:25:24 (permalink)
    well my mum went in for an operation recently., the recorded it so students could see how it went. she had to sign papers to say it was ok.. good in one respect as if they *coughed* up the operation I'd have demanded a copy of the footage. Of course they had to show how it should be perfectly done. So if they said the same to me, I'd not mind...

    2 remixes were the worst for me.. 1 the woman couldn't sing in time.. ended up chopping up the audio to get it to sit correctly.. and as she wasn't such a good singer.. fx'd the hell out of it.. this was before auto tune etc was the norm for most people.. when I met the woman in question, it became apparent... she was pretty, but heck image isn't everything.

    another someone wanted a remix within a day (unrealistic).. totally different genre.. didn't finish it.. but what I played them, she was impressed, but just wanted to get a cd pressed etc.

    so not jobs as such , favors for friends. If the source material is good, that makes things a LOT easier
    #7
    The Maillard Reaction
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/21 08:32:29 (permalink)
    Fog, I hope your mom recovered well. :-)



    #8
    space_cowboy
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/21 09:24:26 (permalink)
    Who Jinga
    That is creepy
    And I thought this low but very clear deep voice going "Zuhhhllll" was odd.

    Some people call me Maurice
     
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    #9
    ProjectM
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/21 11:15:27 (permalink)
    Among many other things, I do work for a dubbing studio, producing and engineering Norwegian voices on non-Norwegian cartoons and documentaries. Some of the studio's clients are Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney etc - as well as the TV broadcasters.

    I just got 20 episodes for a new project and was told it had to be finished in 3-4 weeks. Ok, that can be done. I should preferably only use actors who are no older than 10 years old. Well, ok that can be done although; it'll be a little harder to do....
    And the Chinese has to be perfect...

    What?!

    Chinese???!!!

    The characters use a lot of Chinese expressions and words which had to be perfectly pronounced.

    OK, THIS is a challenge!

    Because of the short time, we had to find experienced kids who have done a lot of this type of work before. We did the voice tests and they all seemed to work quickly enough. The Chinese was more or less put on hold for the tests. I lay awake at night thinking of how this would be accomplished.

    The voice tests returned and I had the first session with the 10-year old girl who does the main character - about 150 lines per episode - Chinese and singing as well.

    It took three hours to do one episode. After we’d done 8 episodes or so, one episode could probably be done in a couple hours. But most of all, I realized that I DO NOT speak or understand or have any other relationship with the Chinese language. I have no reason to or basic understanding to know how or if the Chinese words were pronounced well enough… or even miserably bad, for that matter.

    There I sat with a bunch of kids who didn't have any Chinese knowledge either and I had to teach them how to say the Chinese words correctly. Fat chance! And the lady who translated the scripts from English had used her own phonetic language for the Chinese - AND IT WAS FRIGGIN' INCOSISTENT! The same Chinese expression would be written in one way on page 6 and a totally different way on page 9! And “it would be too much work changing it back” and the studio owner said to me: “C’mon, buddy, that won’t be necessary, will it? You can do this. Besides, we try to keep the cost down.”

    Of course…

    Then the client sent us an e-mail.
    “Hi, the dubs will not be accepted unless the Chinese is perfectly pronounced, have you found a Chinese language consultant to check the Chinese lines?”
    Great!

    “Hey Client! It is impossible to deliver this in 3-4 weeks with those requirements. (Christmas was in the middle of this as well) We simply can not do it. We don’t know Chinese kids who speak Norwegian and are dubbing actors. We don’t know anyone who speak Chinese and Norwegian and can help us with this. We need time to find someone who can help us out with the Chinese”

    You see, Norway is a very small country. We have many Chinese people here but they either don’t speak Norwegian very well, or they don’t speak Chinese very well. Simply put, multilingual Chinese Norwegians doesn’t grow on trees.

    We checked with the Asia faculty at the universities but they were either significantly uninterested or they would charge so much money that we’d loose thousands upon thousands on the job. We checked with restaurants and cleaning people in kindergartens and found a janitor who were a teacher in China – but his Norwegian was not very good. We just hoped he could explain so we understood what would be wrong with the Chinese parts.

    Then the client said: “The delivery of the finished audio is delayed by three months”.
    We danced on our studio desks of course while passing the champagne around!

    Problem was now; we did have time to find multilingual kids who could do the job with a lot of patience and pedagogy from our part. However, the Norwegian kids were voice approved and can’t be replaced. OK, we teach them Chinese.

    I accidentally found a Chinese Norwegian guy in his mid 20’s who were more than happy to check the Chinese – at a cost.

    We couldn’t afford to have him sit with us through all the sessions since that would have us taking him out of his proper job. And the guy had a pretty cool job that paid very well.

    So he comes in, listens to the Chinese and approves or disapproves the recordings. He then teaches me the words and expressions and I teach the kids when we correct it – and of course give kudos for when they do it right.

    Luckily the kids are really talented. It’s working out nicely now.

    But, this job is definitely close to the top at my “Weird Recording jobs” – list.


    Chem ban!

    Or whatever…


    Marius

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    #10
    Fog
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    RE: most strangest recording jobs? 2009/02/21 13:42:35 (permalink)

    ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

    Fog, I hope your mom recovered well. :-)




    yep she did thanks ,it was a year ago I guess, , well shes a diabetic which complicates things, they normally have her in the day before to stabilzed the blood sugar thing... my folks seem to be regular visitors to the hospital, so much so I'm suprised my mum hasn't got her own parking space.. if it's not for the diabetes (trailing a new thing) it was for cataracts etc..

    I do remember picking my dad up after he had one of his cataracts done, his vision and judging distance .e.g. steps was really impaired for a day.. thing with it was I've never seem him drunk or even merry, so the joke was he'd actually been down the pub and had a few jars..hehe

    the pair of them are characters though, I think some of my friends who have more reserved parents are a bit shocked at first. I guess a bit of that rubbed off on me and my sis.




    #11
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