Louder!

Until recently we had a Canon XL-1 in the shop, a real workhorse that had served us well over the years, paying for itself many times over. A couple of years ago we added a Panasonic DVX-100 to the tool box, and the XL-1 hardly got used anymore, and sat sadly in the back of the warehouse in our own little island of misfit toys. So, eventually it went off to eBay, where hopefully it has found a new home with people who love it. Sniff...

Ahem. At any rate, one thing that bugged me about the XL-1 was that the headphone audio level was never loud enough. The built-in amp just didn't have enough oomph (to use the technical term) to really crank the audio.

What do do? Well, there are a bunch of little headphone amps out there, but my personal favorite is the CMOY amp. You can build one yourself if you're handy with the soldering iron, or, if you're like me and you still have burn scars on your hands from early attempts at being handy with a soldering iron, there of plenty of them available for sale on eBay.

I bought one from this gentleman, and it's a really nice unit. Makes a huge difference, and when I'm not using on shoots I use it between my iPhone and my car stereo for some additional punch. The folks at JDS Labs have excellent customer service, and the unit it very well built.

And hey, what could be more fun than an amp built into an Altoids tin?

Support PixelCadabra Via Our Amazon Main Page

Sound FX

As we've mentioned here before, there's an old saying that viewers notice visual images when they are great, but they notice audio only when it's bad. Good audio goes unnoticed, and no one experiences that more than the heroes in sound effect editing, toiling away at their digital workstations, only taking occasional breaks to go to the foley stage to record someone smacking a leather couch with a table tennis paddle.

Proper sound effects can make a huge difference in your productions, and these days, particularly with motion graphics, whooshes and low-end rumbles are practically expected.

Check out this great example I found. It's the Pirate of the Caribbean movie trailer, but with only the Sound Effects track enabled.

You can download the QuickTime movie clip here.

Pretty cool, eh? And there's a lot of subtle stuff going on in there, along with the usual collection of explosions and sword sounds. (My favorite is the swoosh sound at 1:14, as the image fades to black.)

So where do you get your own collection of effects? Well, first of all, Final Cut Studio comes with a hefty collection that often goes overlooked. That's a great place to start. Online, there places like SoundDogs and The Recordist that provide free or very reasonably priced sounds.

Make sure you check the usage agreements, of course.

So what do you think? What are your favorite sources for Sound FX?

Support PixelCadabra Via Our Amazon Main Page