Sound Devices 788T-D Provides Out of is World Audio Recording Capabilities for BBCs Doctor Who

When BAFTA Cymru Award-nominated sound recordist Deian Humphreys set out to capture all of the dynamic dialog for the BBC hit science fiction television program Sound Devices 788T-SSD digital audio recorder, 442 field mixer, CL-9 linear fader controller and Doctor Who is a British science fiction television program produced by the BBC depicting the adventures of a Time Lorda time traveling, humanoid alien known as the Doctor. He explores the universe in his TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space), a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, a common sight in Britain in 1963, when Doctor Who first aired. Along with a succession of companions, the Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations and help ordinary people.

As the production sound mixer, Humphreys is charged with recording clean, clear dialog and reducing the amount of ADR needed. This can be quite challenging on a science fiction show that has a large amount of special effects audio in the background, including smoke, steam and snow machines, as well as a multitude of explosions. Humphreys records the majority of the show using a trolley-based rig, which consists of a Sound Devices 788T-SSD with a CL-9 controller. When on the go, he takes his 788T-SSD using the more portable CL-8 mixing control surface.

One of the features that I really like about the 788T is that it allows me to easily switch between a Schoeps SuperCMIT digital mic and a Schoeps analog mic without the need for any peripheral equipment, says Humphreys. I will often have eight iso-tracks being recorded and two mixed tracks, so the 788T is being driven hard. It always performs incredibly well.

Humphreys also praises the 788T for its flexibility and versatility, which is paramount for recording on a show that utilizes special effect voice modulations on a daily basis. The Daleks, the Doctors arch-nemeses, are voiced by Nicholas Briggs, who uses his own proprietary secret modulation equipment. Nicholas will sit by me on set watching my monitors and I will take an output of his magic box and feed that into my 788T, he says. I am able to iso that and give him a clean feed of what is happening on the floor. I use the Sound Devices 442 as his monitor, so Ill feed a clean output into the 442 and give him his Daleks voice on another channel, so he has independent adjustment of his tracks, which he will often mix himself. I can then take another output of his voice and feed it to a loudspeaker on the floor for the actors, and another for the animatronics controllers, who make the lights on the Daleks flash, which serves as a speech recognition tool when they talk. Its actually quite amazing and all made possible by the 788T-SSD with the 442.

Humphreys also appreciates the 788T-SSDs metadata features, which allow him to remain in close communication with the editors at the BBC. According to Humphreys, When I initially started a year and half ago, I had a long conversation with the dialog editors and one of the requests they had was to match the name of each character with each track. Not just lav 1, lav 2, lav 3, but the character name, so Im constantly in the 778T-SSDs track naming menu and Im re-labeling tracks when different characters come in on those particular mics. Thats such an important feature for me and for the editors, who need to know exactly who is on each track, so they dont need to waste time pre-listening to tracks to find out whos on what.

Sound Devices, LLC designs and manufactures portable audio mixers, digital audio recorders, and digital video recorders and related equipment for feature film, episodic television, documentary, news-gathering, and acoustical test and measurement applications. Founded in 1998, the company designs and manufactures from their Reedsburg, Wisconsin headquarters with additional offices in Madison, WI and Highland Park, IL. For more information, visit the Sound Devices website, .

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