Pro Techniques 03.01.2003

 

Pro Techniques from Amalgamated Superstar

By Randy Alberts

    
 

Amalgamated Superstar
"We help people in finding a balance in their lives here. That's another part of our mission," says co-founder Olivier Spencer of Amalgamated Superstar, a unique blend of New York underground DJ producers pouring 12-inch wax and crafting high-profile ad spots to pay the bills and free their minds. Picture a broadcast music, sound design, and packaging studio staffed by the coolest DJs on the block who get to spend most of their days and nights shaping the New York City underground electronic dance scene from Amalgamated's Pro Tools studios. But there's a lot more going on here.

"This started as a place where people from the underground community could come to execute ideas and collaborate for little or no money," Spencer continues. "Now the bills are paid by the television and advertising money we generate because what we're offering to the agency community, as well, is the opportunity to work with a street-level team of people who didn't evolve from within the corporate world. They're not trained jingle writers, per se, and they've never set foot inside a Manhattan agency. That's exactly what many clients want. The real thing."

Pro Tools|HD, A Coke, and A Window on the Hudson River
That's where Spencer, himself an active composer and producer, comes in. He's "the face" that talks to the agency, goes to all the business meetings, and sits with fickle clients — that's how cool they've all got it at Amalgamated Superstar. An industry-applauded hip-hop spot the team put together for Coca-Cola last summer with McCann-Erickson just drips in da funk. Other notable projects since opening in 2000 include work for Showtime, MTV and MTV2, Elektra Records, the Travel Channel, and Nickelodeon.

    
    

One of Amalgamated's biggest clients
"First and foremost the environment here is for creating records," says Spencer. "At first I saw a more traditional path for myself in gearing towards the agency and network sides of life, but I quickly realized what that reality meant: You can make a lot of money, but what does it do to you creatively to always be in those commercial environments? Some people will read this and say it's foolish to be in this kind of work and not be driven by profit, but hey, watching the World Trade Center collapse through our studio window puts it all in perspective. We're right across from Wall Street and right on the water, a unique perspective. I'm looking at where it used to be right now."

Spencer commented further on Amalgamated's conscious move the past 18 months to focus more on the be-here-now of 12-inch mixes than to keep up with the Joneses of the ad spot music studio scene. A lot of the music produced in the Superstar studios goes straight to vinyl through American labels and to France, where Olivier is originally from. He also notes that the ability to work with European agencies via FTP mixed with a steady flow of Viacom television music work is keeping them connected just enough to live comfortably enough.

"There's no real concept of being signed in 12-inch culture, that just doesn't exist," he notes. "These records have a very short shelf life because club culture music and sounds evolve so quickly. A record comes out and you mix the next one and you move on. We’re contributors to that evolution here at Amalgamated."

 

Pro Technique 1 —
The fastest way there: Five Pro Tools shortcuts
"First and foremost is that your best tool for unleashing the program's full potential is knowing your Pro Tools shortcuts," Spencer offers. "You'll not only save yourself some time but you'll also be able to spend your energies on the creative aspects of session and mix work."

Though these shortcuts are Mac-based, he urges PC Pro Tools users, as well, to learn and make using shortcuts a big part of their average audio day. One of Spencer's favorite shortcuts in working on television spots, sound design, and music composition and production for a living is to press the control key when pulling an audio file out of the Regions list.

"That move spots the file directly to where the current cursor location is," he explains. "I also like to quickly audition audio files that are in the region list by pressing Alt while selecting a file, and using the Option key when changing routing paths, plug-in assignments, solo/muting and other moves is a good one, too. That will mirror the actions on all tracks and aux input channel strips.

"Another shortcut is to replace recurring regions within your timeline with a file from your regions list. For instance, let's say a snare sound isn't working out for you on a track. Press the command key when pulling an audio file out of the Regions list, and in the resulting pop-up menu select 'Replace all regions that match original,' 'Match Region Name,' and 'Find Match On this Track only' and experiment with the 'Fit to' options to suit your needs."

One more shortcut that gets used all the time at Amalgamated Superstar applies to those instances when one needs to repeat previous parts of music throughout a song. Holding down Option+Command+V together enables the user to automatically fill a selected area with an audio or MIDI region without the hassles of having to manually duplicate the region to fit.

"First, select the region you want to copy and press Command+C," Spencer details. "Now select the area over which you want to copy the region, then press Option+Command+V and a batch fade dialog will open that you can use at your discretion."

Pro Technique 2 —
Making the most of available hard disk storage
Any Pro Tools users, especially those now tracking at 96 kHz and 192 kHz, can relate, all too well, to a recent national radio spot for a data management company. "Is there any roooooom in here? No? How about over here?," says the frantic voiceover character. "Oh no, need more room, neeeed more rooooooom."

Spencer and crew's next Pro Technique has to do with doing better with the room you already have by clearing selected unused regions, consolidating the remaining audio files, and copying only the used audio portions of a session to a folder of choice.

"While storage solutions have gotten considerably cheaper over the past few years," he continues, "these tips should help you conserve space when archiving your final sessions. First, in your regions list, select all unused regions (Shift+Command+U), then clear those selected regions (Shift+Command+B). You'll be given the option either to remove or delete the selected regions. The former removes the files from your session while preserving the original audio files on your drives while the latter actually deletes the audio files from your drives."

Spencer then says to consolidate all remaining audio files, which is done from the Audio Regions pull-down menu. This deletes unused portions of audio files to conserve disk space. "Note that doing this permanently deletes files from your drives, so make sure you're dealing with your final session before using it. You'll be given the option to pad your regions with extra audio. The pad variable will conserve audio before and after the regions for crossfades. Then from the file menu select "Save Session Copy in" and in the dialog box select a destination and a file name for your new session, and be sure to check the following in the "Items to Copy" section: All Audio Files, Session Plug-in Settings Folder, and Root Plug-in Settings Folder. When doing this you'll only be copying audio that's being used in your current session. Finally, close out your current session and open the session copy you just created to ensure that you aren't missing any files, and if the session copy works, you can now delete your original session and all of its associated audio file folders.

E-mail info@amalgamatedsuperstar.com for more information on Amalgamated Superstar and its related DJ producers.