ProSoundWeb: Watson Wu, who specializes in recording car engines, weapons fire, aircraft, power tools, explosions, and other high-SPL sources with credits ranging from feature films like Baby Driver to video games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Assassin’s Creed, regularly utilizes a Lectrosonics SPDR (Stereo Portable Digital Recorder) in his work.
3 comments:
I think this is a super interesting article because of how intricate a seemingly small job is. I am always fascinated by how much sound is important to storytelling, emotion, and ambiance of theatere, film, and entertainment. We often don’t recognize all the sounds around us because we filter them out as unimportant, yet when they aren’t there in media it’s immediately noticed. Working with such loud elements adds a whole other layer of complexity. I was super fascinated to read about the gear used and techniques implemented to record incredibly loud sounds such as drag racing cars, locomotives, gunshots, chainsaws, and more. This highlights the importance of knowing what gear to use in different scenarios that arise. Not everything works perfectly with all requirements of sound, so knowing the pros and cons of all the gear will help you get to the cleanest sound and best outcome from your work. I would be fascinated to read more about the SPDR and lectrosonics in the context of theatre work and sound design.
It never really registered in my mind before that every sound effect is a recording of something real. I mean, it makes total sense, of course, but it never really dawned on me fully until reading this article. It mentioned that this sound designer, Watson Wu, has done recordings for Assassin's Creed, which is my favorite video game series. I then thought about how many little sound effects there are, ranging from the patter of feet to the slashing of swords to the whooshing of futuristic tones. The fact that this is his whole job makes sense, but I never thought about this as a possibility. In the world of art there are so many little “small” jobs that create the most amazing products– and there are so many artists who are so uniquely talented and the possibilities are endless! Most of all though, I didn’t expect this job to be dangerous! It sure sounds like it can though! Like every gun shot, animal noise, explosion has to be, in some sense of space and time, real for each show, movie, and video game. (I also found the chainsaw process really cool!)
This is so cool. It is quite literally an art. There is so much more to recording than just setting up a nice mic. Wu has it down to a science. He has figured out where you can place the microphones to get exactly the sounds you need. I would never have thought of putting a mic literally inside the vehicles like in the steam valve or exhaust pipe. I imagine it'd be pretty hard to replicate his technique, which makes him highly valuable. I listened to some of his recordings and I can see why he likes SPDR so much. It has a crisp sound, it has an incredible range– you can turn the gain super low for the really loud sounds– and there’s no clipping and the quality is preserved. The SPDR’s compact-ness is very helpful for getting it into those small places and easy to secure when moving at high speeds. I’m impressed with its hardiness as well. It’s able to survive cars moving 300 mph.
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