With clients including advertising agencies and broadcasters, London’s Clearcut Sound Studios works with television, radio, cinema and online media.
Currently marking its 25th anniversary, the facility is owned by its employees, and headed by MD Chris Wrigglesworth and Senior Sound Designer James Clark. ‘We have built a team of creative and driven individuals that share the responsibility of running the business,’ Wrigglesworth says. ‘We believe this makes us a different breed of facility, where there is a universal passion and care for the people we work with and the work that we do.
Key to Clearcut’s operation are Yamaha Nuage and Steinberg Nuendo – Wrigglesworth joined the company in 2006 and was involved in the switch to Steinberg Nuendo three years later. ‘We were impressed with how easy to use and quick Nuendo was, especially when using it for creative tasks,’ he says. ‘It offered a complete solution that didn’t rely on expensive outboard kit, software add-ons and plug-ins. Since 2009 the updates and software improvements have been impressive and really geared towards changing audio post requirements. The recent changes, which have brought Cubase features to Nuendo 8.2, have been very significant.’
The company had long used Yamaha DM2000 digital mixers for I/O, with expansion cards for Dante connectivity, and has now invested in a system comprising an Ncs-500CT Nuage Master unit, two Ncs-500FD Nuage Fader units and five I/O units.
‘As technology has improved and engineers have got quicker and more efficient at doing certain tasks, the expectation is often that sound sessions can be completed incredibly quickly,’ Wrigglesworth says. ‘We looked at various control options and decided on Nuage, because it is built for Nuendo and every button, knob, fader and of course the jog wheel has a clear and simple purpose.
‘For us as creative engineers, it is important to consider audio as an equal part of the whole production process, to strive for quality and give the sound mix the effort that it deserves and make sure that we all create an outstanding piece of work. Nuage has provided exactly what we needed to achieve that, making it fast and straightforward to harness all aspects of Nuendo. The feedback from both engineers and clients has been universally positive.’
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