As we near the end of the decade, century and millenium, we're also approaching the transition from analog to a digital production standard. In the course of the past few years, I've been making that transition as well. The changing dynamics of working with the two technologies were highlighted for me on two documentaries I mixed for NPR.
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In April of 1993, independent producer David Isay came to the NPR New York Bureau with a big project, a 30:00 documentary for WBEZ and All Things Considered called Ghetto Life 101 (GL 101). The piece in its 'ready to mix' form filled five 10 reels with 7.5ips mono and stereo analog tape, plus a 30:00 'work DAT' with stereo ambience beds. The DAT was a necessity as the NY Bureau has only 4 Studer A-807 2 track tape machines in its control room (one for recording) and there were certainly places in the piece where more than three things would happen at once! |
| Young Reporters, EQ challange | Ghetto Life 101 presented a number of challenges in its mixing stage, not the least of which was the quality of the tape involved. The reporters, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman were 13 years old. David Isay provided them with Marantz PMD221 cassette recorders and Shure SM58 microphones, and had given them some basic instruction in interview and sound gathering techniques. Although much of the tape was well recorded, many of the best moments had been recorded 'on the fly'; some were off mic, others were distorted by over-modulation or had been recorded too low, the worst were compromised by speed variations due to old batteries or excessive jostling of the fairly sensitive Marantz transports. My first order of business was to attempt to correct some of these flaws, or at least to make the indispensable moments intelligible. |
From left to right, David Isay, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, discuss microphone techniques in March 1993
| Once we'd cleaned up the majority of the actualities, David and I decided to try to limit further sub-mixing so as not to take the elements down another generation. This choice led to some very difficult work, consuming hours of studio time. However, it also led to spontaneous changes in the focus or direction of scenes, as fortuitous 'accidents' gave us new ideas and approaches. |
| Multi- Machine Mix Mania | At its best, multi machine mixing is a
collaborative physical discipline, a pas de deux
between the producer and engineer as they strive to
assemble the disparate materials of audio art. The
frustration lies in the coordination: controlling
multiple tape machines, adjusting levels, re-cuing tapes,
listening to the mix and the producer at the same time,
and making the process appear seamless and transparent to
the listener. In a piece like Ghetto Life 101,
where the goal is to create an immersion experience for
the audience, it's crucial to keep the continuous
presence of background ambience beds to enhance the 'you
are there' illusion. Many of the segments involved rapid
crossfades between several :03-:10 second long
actualities (often recorded at different times or on
different equipment, requiring varying equalization) over
two crossfading ambiences, or ambi crossfading to
multiple specific music posts. You can hear an example of
this in the bus ride sequence of GL 101. In this
case, choreographing the dance of four hands, five tape
machines, processing switches and fader adjustments for
one 3:00 minute segment of the mix took hours of studio
time and more than 13 passes to perfect. In places where it was just not physically possible to accomplish all the moves, we'd establish 'cut-in' points so we could mix in sections, careful to hit and match levels on all the elements. Then David would edit together the segments. The final mix of GL 101 resembles a linear patchwork quilt running at 15ips. |
| The Long Production Days | The process itself stretched over the
course of six days, approximately 4 hours per session; 24
hours, or roughly 48:00 minutes of mixing for each minute
of the piece. This is just studio time, and does not
count the endless hours David spent dubbing the original
tape, cutting, leadering and assembling the elements, and
arranging the reels for the studio phase of the work.
Part of the final assembly involved cutting three
different length final mixes; the original full-length
30:00 minute piece for WBEZ, and two shortened versions
for NPR's All Things Considered. ATC agreed
to break format for this piece, losing the bottom of the
hour newscast in favor of giving the listeners as much as
possible of the story. However, this still meant cutting
the original down to 28:10, concealing the edits by
remixing those sections, then cutting them into a copy of
the piece. We were then asked to produce an even shorter
21:35 version, to be transmitted simultaneously on a
separate satellite channel for those stations who
preferred to keep the newscast and hear the further
truncated version. Ghetto Life 101 aired on All Things Considered in May of 1993 and won the 1994 CPB Gold Medal for Documentary Radio Programming as well as the 1994 Prix Italia and Sigma Delta Chi awards for radio documentary. LeAlan Jones, Lloyd Newman and David Isay were honored with the 1993 Livingston Award for Outstanding Enterprise in Radio Journalism. |
In Part II, The Making of REMORSE, the digital fun really begins!
Caryl Wheeler, NPR New York Bureau Engineer, is a regular contributor to EU. She can be reached at cwheeler@npr.org
