That "Sleigh Bells on Every Mix" Time of the Year

Well, we're approaching mid-December and that must mean that things are winding down for the holidays.... someone clearly forgot to tell the folks that have been keeping us up to our ears in projects over the last month (not that we're complaining)!

Tapeworks has seen all types of audio work over the last few weeks: from recording and mixing some very funny Konica Minolta radio spots, to more ADR with our friend Brian Dennehy on the hit CBS show The Good Wife, to a new series of radio promotions for the Orange Bowl in Southern Florida.

Congratulations are definitely in order for our good friend Jason Durrant on the release of his first two full-length studio albums, titled "Embracing the Moment" and "Love Between Us".  Jason recorded and had many of his songs mixed here, and worked with engineer Chris Lennie to master both albums at Tapeworks as well.  We look forward the next project with you Jason! 

As we look ahead, we have some very cool LEGO projects that are "in the works" for the new year.  All of our engineers have been hard at work recording voices, scoring music tracks and sound designing several exciting new projects that we can't share with you just yet....

Cowabunga Dude!

If you were born in the 80s.... or had a kid in the 80s.... you may not need the introduction.

Paige Turco, who played "April O'Neil" in two of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action films, stopped in to record some ADR with us yesterday afternoon.

Mrs. Turco, who stars as a recurring character Zoe Morgan on the hit TV series Person of Interest, was voicing lines here while the post-production director and audio mixer for the show were listening in and producing from California.


We didn't get a chance to bust out the old nunchuks, mostly because our moms said we couldn't. 

      

Tapeworks gets Hardcore

It's not often that one gets to record a session with a hardcore-punk vocalist/author/comedian/TV actor/producer, but that's just what we did this morning as Mr. Henry Rollins stopped in to record some voiceover audio at Tapeworks.

Henry is performing at the Webster Theater as part of his current spoken-word tour tonight; but he is also the narrator for UFC: Primetime, a television series dedicated to showcasing the key figures for the Ultimate Fighting Championship's largest-profile MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fight-nights.  Today he was here profiling the preparation processes for both Georges St-Pierre and Carlos Condit, the two central figures in the next large UFC event.

Henry brings every bit of his "trademark" energy and intensity to the microphone when he steps into the studio, and today was no exception.  When Henry Rollins talks MMA, we'd all do best to listen...

"Fall"-ing into great new work!

Election Fever sets in at Tapeworks

It's election season, and that means campaign commercials.... lots and lots of  campaign commercials.  
Tapeworks recently made our contribution to this biennial flurry of advertising when we recorded a new radio spot for Elizabeth Esty last month.  Mrs. Esty is the Democrat nominee running for Congress in Connecticut's 5th congressional district, formerly represented by Senatorial nominee Chris Murphy.  
While we try our best to stay impartial over matters of political preference, Mrs. Esty was extremely professional, pleasant and easy to work with.  So whenever she decides to retire, there's always that voiceover career waiting in the wings!

CBS calling; and we learn a little history 

Today we had the pleasure of working with one of our favorite pros; internationally-acclaimed film and theater actor (and our good friend) Brian Dennehy came in to record lines for his role in the award-winning hit CBS show "The Good Wife".  Episode #406, titled "The Art of War" will feature the audio our Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn recorded with Brian, and it will air on Sunday, November 4th at 9pm (Eastern).     

Another highlight over the last week was having the chance to record a Tony-Award-winning talent for an upcoming multimedia exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.  Jefferson Mays dropped by the studio in between performances at the Hartford Stage (where he is currently performing in a month-long run of the musical "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" - playing eight different roles).  He was delivering a biographical account of Theodore Roosevelt for this new exhibit at the AMNH, and as could be expected, his conduct and performance were the very definition of professional.  
After speaking with an engineer from the Museum, we discovered that our respective mixing environments are slightly different: we have our main control room where the wall are acoustically treated and built from the ground-up for ideal listening... and they have a giant, marble exhibition hall.  They'll have their work cut out for them, as our contribution is to be one of four separate installations running simultaneously in the same hall.
Mr. Mays' run at the Hartford Stage ends November 11th.

Getting "Ugly" Again

This weekend, Engineer Chris Lennie mastered the latest single for local band Little Ugly as they prepare for their upcoming music video premiere party at Arch Street Tavern in Hartford on Friday, November 2nd.  The entire track was recorded here a couple of months ago, and the video was shot recently by director/cinematographer Daniel Salazar III and art director Nina Salazar.  Congratulations to a local band that continues to work as hard as anyone out there while making cool original music.

We've got TONS more coming up in the next few weeks, including some major sound design and music scoring projects -- stay tuned!

      

Whoops... Spaced Out for a Second

Last week, we took a short break from our regular schedule to focus our attention on the future... actually, 11 years in the future.

We recently threw our hat in the ring to help out with the OSIRIS-REx project, an amazing space-exploration project developed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.  
 
The OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer... whew!) is a $1 billion project that will aim to do what has never been done before: to send a spacecraft into outer space so it can land on an asteroid and collect soil ("Regolith") samples to be studied.  The spacecraft will launch in September 2016, travel for two years to meet up with Asteroid 1999RQ36, spend 505 days mapping the asteroid and gathering samples, before returning to Earth in September 2023.  

Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn was charged with Sound-Designing some new multimedia and video elements that will be launched in conjunction with the OSIRIS-REx initiative. 
We're excited to be involved, and to see the results of this historic event!!

Rubber Band Fever Hits Tapeworks

Q: What happens when you give two recording engineers a couple of free hours, 3 microphones, a giant ball of assorted rubber bands, and complete creative freedom?

A: The single funkiest rubber band-based composition of our time* and Tapeworks' entry into Samplephonics' "Sound Design II" contest.


Engineers Mike Burke and Chris Lennie spent a morning snapping, twanging and bouncing rubber bands recently to put together a two-minute piece of music for the contest, which dictates that entries must use one object to create all of the sounds included in the work submitted. 

After pitch-shifting, EQ-ing, Modulating and generally futzing around in every way possible with our "found sounds," we've submitted our entry, titled "Rubber Soul" which can be heard here.

The prize?  The satisfaction of a job well done.  Also, roughly $1,561.44** worth of software and plugins that would make a beautiful addition to the studio! 

Let us know what you think of the track by either posting on our Facebook page or sending us a Tweet.  And if you're putting one of these together, shoot us a link so we can hear what cool sounds you've come up with!

* "Of our time" = this morning... probably.

** Actually, exactly.  Calculated & converted from £1000. 

Riding the Heat Wave

It's been a couple of weeks since our last blog, mostly because we've been frequenting the Tapeworks company inflatable kiddie-pool* to stay cool!  That being said, things have been busy as ever with a few new projects from some of our favorite clients.

For the folks living the Hartford area: you may have seen a new campaign for the Hospital of Central Connecticut airing on TV recently.  While we've had a long-standing relationship with the HoCC in producing audio for their radio and TV spots, this project involved one of our absolute favorite musicians and world-renowned guitarist, Mr. Jeff Pevar. Jeff came up with a new arrangement and played all of the instruments on what is now a cool & upbeat acoustic guitar-driven adaptation of the old HoCC theme.  The spot sounds and looks great - keep an ear and an eye out for it!

A couple of weeks ago, young singer-songwriter (and good friend of the studio) Emily Yanek returned to Tapeworks to record vocals for her upcoming 2nd album.  While it's always exciting when Emily stops by the studio, this experience was made particularly special by the in-studio vocal production  by Leah Kunkel.  Ms. Kunkel, who forged her own singing career in the late-70s and 80s with a couple of successful solo albums as well as significant appearances on albums by James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Art Garfunkel (among many others), is the sister of the late, great "Mama" Cass Elliott.  It can be incredibly educational to work with someone with as much studio knowledge and experience as Leah, and our engineers (along with Emily) are thrilled to have had that opportunity.

Lastly, Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn recently "commandeered the dance floor" in creating a 2-minute, radio-ready techno song for an upcoming Lego project.  While we can't divulge full details at this moment, let's just say that there was ample booty-shaking throughout the studio during the creation of this ode to auto-tuning.  And none of it was pretty.  We'll post the link once it's up!

That brings us up to speed, with several ongoing projects that we'll be discussing in the next couple of weeks.  If you're looking for us, we'll likely be out back on the Tapeworks company slip 'n slide.

Spring Blog, Part IV - Attack of the Games

Over the last couple of months, Tapeworks has been involved in recording and editing audio for two major video game companies.  
The size and scale of these projects shows just just how far the video gaming industry has come from its relatively modest beginnings. With all due respect to the great pioneers in game score composing for classic systems like SEGA and Nintendo; these definitely aren't your 8- or 16-bit audio projects of the 80s and early 90s!

In late March, engineer Chris Lennie worked with an audio director from EA Sports and ESPN personality Trey Wingo to record and edit Trey's voiceover audio for one of EA's main franchise games: the latest installment in the Madden football series.  In Madden '13, coming out in late August, they have introduced a series of backstories for the players selected in the NFL draft portion of the game. Trey lent the game his voice for this part, which consists of 900 4-to-6 sentence segments that we captured over the course of 5 days.  Between the meticulous attention to details, extensive scripts, and sheer sales of the game in recent years (Madden '12 has sold well over 5 million copies to date), its clear that these things have really become large-scale projects on par with what one might see from a Hollywood blockbuster film.  

Not long after the final whistle blew on our involvement with EA Sports, we received a call from another well-known game audio company to record and edit voiceover with Sportscenter and Wipeout host John Anderson.  John brought some of his trademark wit and insight to the studio for a three-day series of sessions with Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn.  

With the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) occurring right now in Los Angeles, we're definitely keeping our ears to the ground for any new and exciting innovations in the video game community.  The production in gaming just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and we're always looking forward to seeing what comes next!!  
 

Is It Summer Yet? (CUwS III)

About a month ago, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to record authors Jeffrey Fox and Robert Reiss reading voiceovers for the audiobook version of their newly published book, The Transformative CEO.  This session marks the 5th time we've recorded Jeffrey reading one of his books; and as usual, we're all feeling a bit smarter and a lot more industrious for the experience. 

We are also very excited to announce that we are working in collaboration with the folks at the Children's Museum in West Hartford, on a brand-new feature for their planetarium that will debut later in 2012.  Although we have been sworn to secrecy regarding the content and theme of the project, I can tell you that it will provide some very cool, exciting and educational insight into the future of our planet (and possibly another one, too).

We recently had the pleasure of working with a few of Hartford's really promising up-and-coming musicians, as the band Little Ugly stepped into the studio to record their newest single "And We Said..." for an upcoming music video!  Little Ugly were winners of the Hartford Advocate's Grand Band Slam "Best Rock Band" for 2011, as well as Hartford Magazine's "Best Musician/Band" in 2012.  Keep an eye (and an ear!) out for this local acoustic rock/folk quartet that can be found playing their ever-expanding repertoire of original music (and some killer covers) nearly every weekend, throughout the Northeast.  
  

Catching Up With Spring - II

The last month at Tapeworks has seen our work featured on a couple of major projects for our friends at LEGO, that you can now see online and in theaters around the country.

Engineers Bill Ahearn and Chris Lennie were hard at work on the score and sound design for a series of videos for the new LEGO Monster Fighters campaign.  The Monster Fighters series features a group of tough, battle-tested heroes working together to defeat the diabolical plans set into motion by a group of insidious villains and monsters such as Frankenstein, Werewolves, Vampires, Mummies and Zombies. 
We had a ghoulishly good time working on a score that integrates current dubstep elements with more classic "B-movie" horror textures and sounds.
"I got a fever.  And the prescription... is more theramin!!"
- Overheard outside our control "Room A" during composition of Monster Fighters theme, April 2012.


After we gathered our courage together, we embarked on the next project: a 2-3 minute Lego Avengers video, in time for the release of the Marvel Avengers film a couple of weeks ago.  Working with the Marvel-sanctioned sound effects library and a host of music cuts from the Avengers movie, Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn put together a stellar soundscape for the video, which features a LEGO-based synopsis of the Hollywood blockbuster itself.

The best part?  You can literally drop in on your favorite local theater to watch it for yourself - our Avengers Lego video is showing as part of the previews for the actual movie in theaters right now!  So even though you've likely seen the movie 3-8 times already (or if you are among the 12 people on earth who haven't seen it yet), there's plenty of time to catch it again if you missed us before. 

Whew!  Time to take a break for the holiday weekend.  Everybody enjoy the (fingers crossed) beautiful weather and extra day of relaxation.  More to catch you up on when we return from the break....

Catching up with Spring I

With summer rapidly approaching, we've been afforded a moment to take a breath, collect ourselves at the keyboard and fill you in on our last few weeks as we prepare for a busy June.

Lift-Off!! 
A couple of posts back, you heard about former Survivor contestant, Terry Dietz, touching down in the studio for a series of voiceover narrations that were going to be featured on the TV show Great Planes.  The show has finally arrived, and the episodes look (and sound!) great. 

Airing Wednesdays at 10pm (Eastern) on the Military Channel, tune in to hear Terry share his extensive aviation knowledge - in perfect clarity - through our beautiful new-ish BAE modular mic pres!




The Big Voice Returns

As the sun shines longer and the days get hotter, anticipation is building for one of Connecticut's biggest annual summer events: The Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, June 18-24. 

The championship has already left its mark on us here; as we recently recorded legendary ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman doing all of his radio voice work for this year's edition of the tournament.  Mr. Berman, a long-time friend of the studio and the Travelers Championship, filled our halls with his instantly-recognizable voice for an afternoon last week. 

You can really feel the studio energy pick up a little when you hear that booming delivery - we're looking forward to hearing his voice on the radio for all-things-Travelers over the next month! 

The tip of the iceberg!

Keep an eye out for our twitter feed and facebook page as we continue to update and inform with renewed vigor. There's lots more to come in the next week!  Our work is showing up all over the place lately: including a worldwide theatrical release, a planetarium show in-the-making, a couple of HUGE video game releases, and much more!  Stay tuned...

The Doctor is (or, was) in!

If you flip through this month's issue of Rolling Stone magazine, you will likely stumble across a glowing review of Dr. John's new album, Locked Down.  

The new album (photo courtesy of the Rolling Stone website), produced by Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys), scored a 4-star review from the critics at RS.  It also got us thinking about our experience with Dr. John many years back, when the iconic singer/keyboardist stopped by the studio to record a jingle for Vision Corner called "Where Did You Get Those Eyes".

Winner of Ad Week's "Best of Broadcasting" award in New England for 1995, the spot featured a who's-who of our favorite writers (Dik Haddad), composers (Joe Grieco and Tapeworks owner/President Doug Kupper), and musicians: Jeff Pevar (Guitar), Dave Santoro (Bass), Craig Eastman (Fiddle) and of course, the good Doctor providing piano and vocals. 

While he's currently getting some much-deserved recognition from mainstream critical rview, Dr. John has long been a staple of the New Orleans Blues/Jazz/R&B scene.

This is the picture that has hung in the front of Tapeworks ever since - Dr. John at the mic, flanked by studio owner Doug Kupper and creative director Dik Haddad.  Once in awhile, you get a chance to work with the very best; we've learned to keep a camera handy to capture those moments!

Dublin Connection

While most of you likely celebrated your St. Patrick's Day on the weekend, we were all feeling a little bit Irish here midway through last week. 

Last Wednesday, in a timely twist of fate, our studio connected via ISDN with Mutiny Studios in Dublin, Ireland.  The lovely folks at Mutiny were directing their voiceover talent over the line as they recorded spots for Liberty Insurance at their end.

An American-owned company (they go by Liberty Mutual here), Liberty has also become one of the primary insurance providers in Ireland - thus the necessity for our trans-Atlantic connection.   

Still, all in a day's work in this business - and were it not for the booking immediately afterwards, we might have kicked back a Guinness (or two) in honor of our international session!

Engineer Sighting!!!

Over the years, we've had the chance to show off our great gear in numerous photo-ops.  Wouldn't it be nice if one of these audio companies featured our studio and staff on one of their websites?  Well......

If you happen to visit the website for Automated Processes, Inc. this month, you may see a familiar face.  

Our very own Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn, as well as the studio itself, is featured in this month's installment of API online's feature "Word from the Street".  

Knowing that we had recently purchased one of their 500-series "lunchboxes" as well as paired 550a EQ modules and 527 Compressor/Limiter modules, API contacted the studio a little while back to see how we were enjoying the new gear.  

Bill crafted his response, sent it in, and the results are displayed on their website.  Take a look when you get a chance, or - better yet - drop by the studio to hear why we're so excited about our lunchbox!

Coming up next week: the Tapeworks crew wearing our snazzy new API Tees!  Think of it as a blog-update B-side...

Great Voices, Great Planes

Over the last couple of weeks we've had an opportunity to brush up on our historical aviation knowledge, with the help of Military Channel host and former Survivor: Panama contestant Terry Dietz.  

Terry - a Simsbury, CT resident and American Airlines pilot - is a retired US Navy Commander and he provides the narration for the show Great Planes.  The show, about to start its 3rd season on Military Channel, focuses on aircraft that have played a vital role in significant military events throughout US history.   

Although Terry had previously made a name for himself on TV through his 3rd-place finish on Survivor in 2006, his expertise and enthusiasm when it comes to aviation is perfectly suited for this show.

We've even managed to learn a thing or two... 

With Season 3 just about ready to "take off," we're looking forward to seeing the new episodes!

Putting a Face - and Piano - to the Music

While we're used to seeing musicians and actors pay regular visits to Tapeworks, it's not often that they are accompanied by a film crew!

Last week, the studio had a unique opportunity to host a video shoot for our friend Grayson Hugh.  Grayson was putting together a promotional video featuring parts of 5 of his most memorable songs, and the video prominently features not only Grayson, but our very own C6 Yamaha Concert Grand Piano.  


Both Grayson and our Yamaha look great -- you can watch the finished video by clicking here.  



The shoot was a fun experience for everyone involved, and a chance for us to re-visit some great songs from a great Connecticut-based songwriter and performer!