Having performed and recorded with the likes of Alanis Morissette and Harry Connick Jr, and orchestrated stars like Barbra Streisand, Elton John and Liza Minnelli, John Dickson is one of the most in-demand film and TV composers on the circuit. His latest credit is the rework he has given his studio.
Among his current projects are the hit US show Burn Notice. ‘We’re in our fourth season of that show, with a fifth commissioned for next year – so that’s good,’ he says. ‘I also recently composed the score for the Fox summer show The Good Guys and I have a brand new feature film coming out called Miss Nobody.’
Key to the refit that has ‘revolutionised’ his production flow, is the installation of Solid State Logic XLogic MadiXtreme and Delta Link routing system. ‘It’s brilliant,’ he says. ‘The MadiXtreme and Delta Link have given me an additional 64 outs from my Digital Performer writing rig, and 64 more ins into my Pro Tools rig. They have allowed me to track huge cues with up to 200 tracks in a single pass with a minimum of premixing in DP. It also sounds fantastic and was very easy to set up and integrate into a larger Pro Tools studio. It’s also a very economical and space-saving solution for gaining more digital I/O.
‘MadiXtreme has cut my tracking time down by around 70 per cent and has given me much greater isolation of voices and much more flexibility,’ he adds. ‘There have been times recently when deadlines have gotten so tight, and there’s been so much music to record, that the ability to track large amounts of audio in one pass has truly saved our bacon.’
More: www.solidstatelogic.com
