Chocolate studios acquires Avid D-Command
Published: ASIA
AUSTRALIA: When it comes to high-class confectionary, there’s more to Melbourne than Haighs. Located in South Melbourne, Chocolate Studios consists of a dedicated team of editors, compositors, animators and sound engineers working within 10 picture editing suites, two audio suites and a film/Foley Sound studio.
Although the bulk of the team’s daily work consists of television advertisements, the Chocolate staff offer an assortment of delights including commercials for large retailers in Europe and film animation commercials from the US and UK. The facility is the largest user of DS HD Nitris systems in Australia along with numerous Shake, After Effects and FCP HD Suites, which all have secure FTP links for clients checking work’s progress from remote sites.
Fibre connected, the editors perform the bulk of their duties on Avid DS connected to Terrablock, a central mass storage device. The newly constructed audio suite became operational in February 2011 and is heavily soundproofed to deaden any noise from the traffic on City Road behind.
Audio technician Marc Judson inserts the necessary sound and musical effects into the individual timelines via Pro Tools. The new audio studio seats a recently acquired 40-fader Avid D-Command console and brand new X-MON which takes control of the all-new monitoring system.
Genelec 1038B monitors take up main L-R positions to the side of the screen, with a 1038BC monitor hidden behind. These are complemented by wall mounted 8040 and 8050 models on the rear and lateral walls for surround sound, whilst a 7173 subwoofer supplements the low frequencies. Finally, a pair of 8040 monitors perform nearfield duties. Genelec’s Clifford Pereira flew in from India to help fine tune the system, which Steve Spurrier calibrated.
The ProTools HD equipped studio is complemented with a voiceover booth, Source Connect for international connections and an extensive music and effects library, which continues to grow via Mr Judson’s experiments on his Tascam DR-100 recorder.
‘I really like the Tascam DR-100,’ he explained. ‘I can easily record so many unique sounds in the field and upload them with ease into our archives.’ Casting is made simple with a wide variety of voices on file, while MP3s of sound designs, jingles and music tracks can be emailed to clients.
‘I had been working on another audio system for the past five years and hadn’t operated Pro Tools during this time,’ Mr Judson furthered. ‘However, as soon as I started working on it again it was like I’d never been away.’
Mr Judson has recently returned to Chocolate to head up the audio department after spending some time furthering his skills at another Melbourne based audio facility. He added: ‘After being in the industry for 18 years I still trust that any mix I do on Genelec speakers will sound great on anything, they give a true representation of the sound mix.’
The adjacent sound booth, which is catered for vocally by a Rode Classic II microphone, is connected visually with the studio via a unique industrial porthole. A Focusrite Red is the main preamp for vocals backed up by a Focusrite Octopre MkII, providing an extra eight channels of pre-amplification and a built-in 24-bit/96kHz ADAT output, offering Chocolate a powerful input upgrade for its‚ Pro Tools system.