Category: Sound Design

Sonidos de Cuba has a new look!

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Check out the cover art for my album! It was recently finished by the beautiful and talented Tania Clarke of Side B Design Studio (side-b.ca) who also happens to be my wife. She took some gorgeous photos during our trip to Cuba. If you’d like to have a look please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidebdesign

In other news, my show at Sequential Circus 11 on August 18th was a lot of fun! I was pretty nervous leading up to (and during) my set. I’ve never sweat so much while playing and my slick lips had a hard time hitting my higher range. I was feeling pretty sloppy with my trumpet playing, and not feeling too good about my performance until after I finished. I received a good round of applause and was given a lot of congratulations on my set so I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought! The rest of the evening was fantastic.

Phonotactic had a great journey of a set using Ableton and a Kaosspad. He went from mellow funky dubby music to thumping floor fillers. Then Tarekith took the stage with his Elektron duo (Octatrack and Machinedrum). His set was smooth, cool, and full of slick production. Next, Dark Arps emerged with gut throbbing basslines and tech funk delights. My friend dubbed him the Techno-borg as he was wearing a Sci-Fi suit that glowed and flashed to the music. It was hot enough there in shorts and a T-shirt so I imagine he was baking in his Borg suit. Muxx followed him with a high energy techno set that reminded me of fun times in early raves. His “One night in East Van” had the whole crowd chanting along with him. Lastly Vincent Parker switched things up with psychedelic synth washed dubby beats. Good times indeed!

The Sequential Circus crew should be posting the sets on their website soon if you’d like to hear them for yourself. I’ll post a link once they emerge. Meanwhile, I’m working on sound design for one of the rooms at this year’s Dunbar Haunted House. It’s turning into a fun creative project making the atmosphere for a Daycare of Doom. I’ve even done some voice-acting. Just one song left to complete for Sonidos de Cuba. This one’s called Ascensor (for now) and features a recording of the elevator in our apartment in Vedado. It would only go up to the 7th floor, but our Casa Particulaire was on the 9th so we’d have to hoof the last two floors. Working elevators are something I never realized I took for granted in Canada until then. Once that one is finished I’ll spend some time mastering the album and then I’ll be able to finally unleash it on the world!

Audio Trademarks

This is an interesting article from the Vancouver Sun regarding the recent move by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) to allow the trademarking of sounds: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Sounds+that+send+message/6490368/story.html?goback=.gde_726837_member_109465483

When I was working on the concept audio for the Chevy Volt, there was a tremendous amount of thought and discussion that went into the emotional impact that the sounds within the vehicle would have on the driver. They wanted to convey the power of the Volt, but at the same time make it feel welcoming and not agressive. They also wanted to highlight the green technology of the car. I experimented with synthetic and natural sounds like water and wind to zero in on the tones that best suited what they described. I recorded spinning magnets, my breath through a conch shell, and a plucked cello and layered them together for one cue. The whole project was an interesting challange and a fun process. I’m glad to see that CIPO is taking audio trademarks into consideration and I hope it means that more companies will consider audio branding.

Japan and Thailand Sound Collage

I’ve made a collage of the recordings I made with my H4N during my honeymoon in Japan and Thailand. There was no compression applied, but there was a high-pass filter used on a couple recordings to eliminate wind rumble. I also used a Rode NTG3 Shotgun mic on some recordings.

The Japanese collage features trains, cicadas, temples, pachinko parlours, and a taste of Harajuku.


The Thai collage has long-tail boats, tuk-tuks, bats, frogs, gibbons, and a jewellery factory.

Sublime Sound Selected to Create the Sound of the Chevy Volt

Sublime Sound is extremely pleased to announce that we have been selected to create in-vehicle audio for the upcoming Chevrolet Volt from General Motors.