This content is brought to you by Audiocourses dot com
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Any film buff knows that the video portion of a picture, no matter how wonderfully captured, is only a part of the overall viewer experience.
Without high-quality audio, the film will have far less impact on its audience. And while digital audio has its benefits for many aspects of audio-for-video production, many filmmakers prefer the sound and feel of a high-quality analog signal path for their soundtrack, foley and dialog. That's certainly the case at the famous NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where a new Daking 16x8 analog console has recently been purchased and installed for teaching purposes, as well as for production of student films and radio
plays.
The school had gone through a number of consoles at a variety of price points before settling on the Daking. According to John Gurrin, who teaches Sound/Image and Studio Recording as part of the faculty of undergraduate film
and TV, "A quality analog console can last twenty years and still be completely viable. It allows me to teach something that is still an integral
part of the professional sound industry."
The NYU Film Programs' sound post-production facility includes a 15-workstation
lab, ten small edit/mixing rooms, a foley studio, an ADR studio, a listening/teaching room, and a film mixing theater. The Daking console
is installed in the music recording studio, where it serves as the front-end for the room's high-powered DAW system. "The Daking console is
the front-end for a 24-bit/96kHz G5 DAW and also serves as a mixing desk with all of the advantages of hardware EQ, compressors, reverbs, and summing buses," says Gurrin. "The digital part of the studio - the computer - will
be replaced every five years or so. The foundation, where sound is captured
and reproduced - the Daking - will last much longer."
The Film School's Daking console features 16 inputs and eight output buses.
Among Gurrin's favorite features are "the discrete mic pres, the stepped
EQ. What can I say? It's a real console not a prosumer disposable toy." He continues listing the console's strengths, naming the "high-quality analog audio, and simple layout and operation" as primary features in the Film School's decision to go with the Daking.
Students at NYU Film School get acquainted with the new Daking console.
While the console is new to the NYU Film School, it has already seen extensive
use, both for teaching purposes and for the production of a wide range of projects. "We recorded the Momenta Quartet performing music by Mena Hanna, the Michael Evans Trio, and Pete Galub and the Annuals, all of whom
are not well-known yet, but are truly amazing groups," continues Gurrin. "We're hoping to record Zemog, El Gallo Bueno soon. Plus we have a one-hour HD dramatic project that we are doing ADR for now and plan to record the score
for later this year."
Whether used to record soundtracks for student films, or foley and dialog for
films and radio plays, the Daking has shown itself to have excellent sound quality, and plenty of capability for handling whatever task is required.
Gurrin is very pleased with the performance of the console, especially its "great sound - full, strong, and solid."
A big benefit for Gurrin and the Film School was being able to interface directly
with Daking while considering the purchase of the console. "Geoff Daking was helpful and had good ideas. He has a real music and engineering background, which makes a big difference," says Gurrin. "He's not a software guy developing audio applications, he's a musician making sound recording equipment."
www.daking.com
