The installation of a fourth Fairlight EVO audio production has enabled Margarita Mix sound mixers Paul Hurtubise, Jimmy Hite, Nathan Dubin and Jeff Levy to work on identical audio post platforms in their HD mixing suites to the company’s facility Santa Monica.
‘The facility was already working extensively on Fairlight, and after careful evaluation and testing, I made the transition,’ says Hurtubise, who joined Margarita Mix in late 2012 with more than 20 years of experience in commercial audio post. ‘Fairlight is not fatiguing on the ears, and I seem to hear things more clearly and definitively,’ he says. ‘The EVO workstation is also very ergonomic and easy to operate. I feel like I’m on a system that’s been developed for humans to work on. EVO’s jogger fits my hand, and its keyboard fits my fingers. I’m running sessions more efficiently because I’m not as focused on all the clicking.
‘It’s much easier for me to be on the Fairlight all day,’ he adds. ‘I noticed immediately that I wasn’t as physically tired at the end of the day. The displays are comfortable to work on, too.’
Specialising in audio post for commercials and advertising, the Margarita Mix team also like the fact that picture has a home within the system: ‘The picture’s right there when I want it,’ Hurtubise says of the dual-channel HD video recorder that is integrated into EVO. ‘I also like the streaming Pyxis video frames along the bottom of the timeline display, and being able to see the picture frames before and after the play head. This way, I can see how many frames I have until my next edit.’
When the mixers need to face the voiceover booth with a script in front of them rather than face the EVO surface, they’ve created a macro that puts ‘record’ on different sides of the controller so that it’s easier for them. Fairlight’s one-button record function also helps in VO sessions when the talent starts to speak.
‘We don’t want to interrupt them; if we press our ‘Record’ macro button, the disk recorder immediately stops one take and goes right into another one in the span of a tenth of a second,’ Hurtubise explains.
Custom fader sets are another asset: ‘I’ve never been on a system where I can so easily lay out faders to my liking,’ says Hurtubise. ‘Sometimes I’m knee deep into a session and I really wish I had my beeps next to my mic, right next to my music stem, right next to my sound effects stem, next to the dialog stem next to my headphone send - then I can mute and level them very easily. I can create that quickly with Fairlight.’
There are also features on the Fairlight that Margarita Mix hasn’t found on its previous DAWs: ‘I like the way Fairlight solos tracks: I can solo a set of tracks, un-solo them by holding control and pressing one button, and then re-solo that same set by pressing one button,’ Hurtubise reports. ‘I like being able to memorise zooms. Say I have 128 tracks with 70 music stems and 40 sound effects stems. I can zoom to the music tracks and store it in U1; I can go to the sound effects tracks and store that in U2. If I hear something in the music I just press U1, and instantly I’m looking at the music stems. It is super easy.
All four Fairlight operators use similar console control templates. Nathan Dubin has been at Margarita Mix for more than a decade, recording VO, mixing for television, ADR recording for film and commercial mixing for TV and radio that has earned several industry accolades. Working with clients such as Nissan, Activision, Disney, AT&T, Kaiser Permanente, and UPS, Jimmy Hite has more than 30 years of experience in sound mixing for the commercial and advertising industries, and has won numerous awards throughout his career. Paul Hurtubise focuses on commercial mixing as well as ADR and commentary recording. His recent credits include spots for Google, eHarmony, Old Navy, Hyundai, and Toyota, among others. Jeff Levy has been part of the team for 20-plus years, also earning multiple awards for mixing and sound design.
More: www.fairlight.com.au
