Auto-Correct Love Song

Here’s a song I produced for my friends at CollegeHumor. Directed by Ben Joseph, lyrics by Streeter Seidell, and VFX by the wizards at Gloo Studios.

Before I talk about the track, I just want to give major props to the two amazing singers I brought in for this one: Maurice Smith and his friend Dejah Gomez. I can’t thank them enough for taking the time to bring their world-class musicianship to this ballad about cell phone technology.

You may remember Maurice from his amazing vocal work on the demanding Boyz-II-Men track we worked on a while back. Maurice was one of the first singers I worked with after moving to LA.. and was a real wake-up call to how insane the level of talent is out here. Here’s one of my favorite live clips of Maurice:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoF6me0yffw#t=1m40s

Dejah is equally stunning… as you’re read in her bio, she’s sung with Justin Timberlake at the Grammys, Al Green, Smokey Robinson, Mariah Carey, and the list goes on. Here’s a hilarious clip of her signing a duet with the great Stevie Wonder:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tbQ2k1T7Jo#t=2m18s

Making the backing track was fun, too: music-wise, Streeter wanted a RnB slow jam with a sort of sung-spoken approach to the vocals. So, I listened to a bunch of Usher songs and R. Kelly’s infamous ‘Trapped in the Closet’. Usher-y arrangements seems to be all about keeping the drums very tight/dry sounding, and the arrangement pretty minimal as most of the activity is in the vocals. This actually worked out really well in our case since we have a LOT of lyrics in this track and want to make sure they remain the focus. I threw in a musical accent here and there (piano, claps, whooshes, etc) and that seemed to do the trick.

I made a scratch track with some vocal melody ideas but Maurice and Dejah’s parts were largely ad-libbed. Directing world-class singers when you’re not a singer is equal parts embarrassing and hilarious :)

edit: as an added bonus, check out this video Maurice just released:

Danielle Birrittella - vocal montage

I’m on vacation (hello Chicago!) but wanted to share a little treat with you: a montage of the very talented Danielle Birrittella:



She stopped in the studio last week with some past recordings and we put together this demo. The goal being to give an introduction to her wide-ranging vocal skills (my words, not hers… Danielle is extremely modest) in the span a few short minutes, since we all know how busy those decision makers can be..

Enjoy!

Microsoft // Moving Blue // testimonial

I recently had the pleasure of scoring and sound designing an animation for Microsoft by director Ahmad Al-Awadi of Moving Blue. It was screened last month at Microsoft’s annual MGX event- a huge production with over 15,000 people in attendance! Above is a still (and yes, it did involve scuba diving)

Ahmad was quite fun to work with- he’s talented, organized, and works well under pressure. Our 10 hour time difference (Ahmad is based in Kuwait and I’m in LA) actually worked out really well because I would turn in a draft of the audio at night (morning in Kuwait) and Ahmad would pick up right away with the animation. Then at the end of HIS day he’d render out the latest animation for me. We kept trading back and forth in this manner, thus the project was speeding towards completion around the clock.

Anyway, Ahmad wrote me a testimonial for this and 2 commercials we collaborated on shortly after :)

Carl is an amazing composer & sound designer, the quality of his work is just outstanding! When we started working on our first project and I got to listen to the first music draft I was in awe, because he nailed it from his first attempt, it’s like he is inside my mind!

So far I’ve worked with him on several projects and he tackled every single one while being spot-on with his deadlines. It’s very rare to find someone who quickly understands the kind of sound design that works in any given situation, and Carl is that person. Moreover, when it comes to communication he’s a cool and friendly down-to-earth guy who is easy to work with. Overall I’m very pleased with his services and will definitely keep him in mind for future projects.

Ahmad Al-AwadiProducer/Director - Moving Blue

I’m excited to work more with Ahmad in the future! I leave you with a still from one of our other (unreleased as of yet) projects:

Pipe Dream released

It’s hard to believe this day has come: Pipe Dream, a film I finished scoring 2.5 YEARS ago* has finally been released. It’s interesting to hear the musical approach of a younger me and I look back on this one fondly.

I’ve written a bit about it before in a previous blog post:

Vocals by my great friend Alice Wedoff, who’s also an amazing theater actress.

The goal for this score was to match the tone of the film with something like an echoey French pop song interwoven into sweeping/dreamy swells and neurotic sound design. I used a mix of synths, a broken guitar I found in an alley, orchestral elements and more to get it there.

This was also a fun challenge because it required French lyrics– and I don’t speak French! Solution: I sang a temporary track of the melody (in gibberish), David wrote lyrics to match, then Alice came in and nailed the real thing. Voila! (Ok, one word of French…)

I must give kudos to our good friend Joel Anderson for his top-notch sound design, and of course to director David Fishel for not only making the thing but also having the persistence to get through many a technical setback. Here’s his description:

This is a cute little short I shot on 16mm in Paris in 2007. When backing up the hard drive it was on before making the final mix, the hard drive crashed and I lost everything. It has taken until now to rebuild it from the negative and complete it, thanks to the help and support of many friends.

summary:Set against the less than conventionally romantic backdrop of the Paris Métro, “Pipe Dream” tells the unlikely connection between two would-be lovers despite social, cultural, and linguistic boundaries.

Relaaaaaaaaax

Stop doing that and relaaaaaaaaax by sondrol

Here’s a short track I made for a project that was never released (inevitably happens in ad work now and then).

The project needing something very easy-going and happy so I whipped up some cheesy lounge muzak.

I was quite excited to bring in a herd of the best musicians I know for this one. Extra special thanks, guys.

vocals: Hawk Colmanflugelhorn: Gerald Baileypercussion: Quin Kirchnersax: Nick Thompsonguitar: Max Crowe

Enjoy.

Meet Alex and Richard!

I’m lucky to have two very talented people helping out in my studio this summer. They each have serious skillsets in contrasting areas of music, which is great for keeping things interesting around here. Here’s a quick introduction in alphabetical order:

Alex Wand is pursuing an MFA in Music Composition at CalArts, studying under Mike Fink. This after triple-majoring in Music, International Studies and Spanish at the University of Michigan. He’s studied composition under greats such as Bright Sheng and even spent time abroad in Spain where he also studied classical and flamenco guitar.

What drew me to Alex was his natural sounding compositions and very broad knowledge of music. Here’s one of my favorites by Alex, a track from his band Light in August:



Head on over to alexwand.com to hear more.

Richard Howarth has worked with some heavy hitters in the hip hop community including Raekwon and Ghostface Killah (of Wu Tang), Pill, Prof, and YelaWolf. In addition to the hip hop work, he’s also done soundtrack work for a sports documentary and remix work for Taylor Swift’s iPhone app.

I was drawn to Richard’s work as it’s full of creative, compelling textures that I find quite motivating to listen to as a producer. Here are 2 of my favorites:

Birthday Treats

I’m out of the studio today for my birthday! So instead of an update or article, here are a few of my favorite pieces of music:



Mike Patton, one of my all-time musical heroes, released Mondo Cane last year - a great album of Italian pop songs with a 30-piece orchestra. He did a few live performances, too- above is one (music starts at about 1:00).



A track from my very favorite Charles Mingus album, Let My Children Hear Music.



Jazz pianist/composer Uri Caine has several albums of beautiful/adventurous/genre-bending interpretations of Mahler music. This particular disc won the German Mahler Society award as the best new Mahler CD of 1997… to the outrage of some society members (Full story here.) A fascinating and fun listen.



One more… a track from Soul on Top, which features a young James Brown backed by the smokin’ Louis Bellson big band… I really enjoy him in this context, wow!

Axe Cop: #1 motion comic in existence

Ethan Nicolle (co-creator of Axe Cop) writes:

Topless Robot named Axe Cop the #1 motion comic in existence! That is pretty high praise and I hope all the guys who worked so hard on those things get a big warm fuzzy from that article.

I sure did!

The article described the soundtrack as “

the greatest cartoon music since the 1960s Spider-Man series

.” What do I say to that?? I am quite flattered. :)

Click

here

and scroll down to see and read about the 3 episodes I’ve worked on thus far.

The Animals

Remember that crazy Man v Candy Machine film I posted a few weeks ago?

Well, director Angeline Gragasin’s currently making a new film, and only has 3 days to go on her Kickstarter. Check out the video above, and consider donating if you are intrigued. I did! I am!

Adventures in Voiceover

I’ve been putting my booth to good use lately with a few VO/ADR sessions and thought I’d share some memories.

First, here’s the scarily-talented (and strong) Luke Sholl (aka Bodyguard aka Lord Sinister) recording some minotaur/monster voices for an upcoming CollegeHumor video:



Here’s Very Mary Kate (courtesy of the hilarious Elaine Carroll), who recorded some lines a few weeks back but quickly became cold and/or sad:



Lastly, Luke also recorded a bunch of dialog for Season 2 of CH’s impressive series “Troopers”. Just look at that crazy set & costumes!

Man V. Candy Machine

I had the pleasure of sound designing, mixing, and creating a shifting robotic voice from director Angeline Gragasin’s dialogue for the above piece. I’ve never worked on anything like this before. It’s futuristic, theatrical, visually stunning, sonically dense, and the most challenging sound design project I’ve EVER taken on.

I will do a detailed “making of” post at some point, but now I’d just like to acknowledge the herd of extremely talented people who worked on this (below). High five everybody!

SYNOPSIS:In the year 2137, MAN goes to the supermarket, with the intent to order the goods and supplies he needs. MAN v. CANDY MACHINE is the story of his encounter and ensuing battle with an all-consumering omni-bot, which knows all MAN’s tastes, his preferences, his dreams and his weaknesses. CANDY MACHINE deals MAN groceries, movies, appliance, narcotics, a beating, and worse. Does MAN ever give into defeat at the hands of the immortal machine?

http://manvcandymachine.com

DIRECTOR: Angeline GragasinSCRIPT: Jonathon AnthonyPRODUCER: Daniel PostilnikMOTION GRAPHICS: Rebecca Berdel and Rand SevillaSOUND DESIGN: Carl SondrolMAN: Dikker OurfenorfCANDY MACHINE VOICE: Angeline GragasinSOUND EDITOR: Daniel PostilnikSOUND DESIGN INTERN: Joshua SauvageauPRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: Brian SulpizioDIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Caleb ConditASSISTANT CAMERA: Robert CaubleEDITOR: Angeline GragasinILLUSTRATIONS: Karen Abad and Gretta JohnsonCOSTUME DESIGN: Gretta JohnsonWIGMASTER: Mark BotelhoSPECIAL THANKS: Alec Oliver, Eddie Jordan, Ben Kolak, and Super Mega Action Plus

Alice in Wonderland revisited

[video src=“http://blog.sondrolmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MadTeaParty_Loud-Music_Sondrol.m4v” poster=“http://blog.sondrolmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MadTeaParty_poster_500x281.jpg” width=“500” height=“281”]

Above is a project I scored & sound-designed for CollegeHumor last year. Since I’m about to go into a lot of geeky detail I’ve mixed the music a bit higher in the above than CH’s officially released version so you can easily follow along :)

This was a nice challenge, as my goal was to create a score true to the classic cartoon style of the original 1951 Alice in Wonderland score by Oliver Wallace. It required 21 (!) cues in the span of about 2 minutes… just a few seconds each on average. I have to confess I LOVE this kind of music.. it’s so spastic, unpredictable and intricate. Carl Stalling, who did all the classic music for the Warner Bros cartoons, is another hero of mine.  I suggest giving his music a listen without the context of cartoon sometime (you can do this on Amazon here).. it’s amazing how daring and downright bizarre it is!

Anyway, to do a thorough analysis I cut up the audio of the original score into small clips, labeling each with a stylistic description. (e.g. “mouse chase music” or “angry brass staccato” or “confusing rabbit - ascending chords."  Then I placed these snippets into CollegeHumor’s video as a sort of "texture guide”. I also notated some of the chord progressions - not to duplicate them with my own music, but to learn what kind of progressions Wallace was using to generate each mood.

(CLICK to see clips from the entire scene labeled)—

Then I created an original score, using similar textures and instrumentation. The screenshot below is what my project looked like after finishing.. each of those orange/yellow blocks near the middle represent string parts. I’ve got the woodwinds, brass, and percussion parts minimized (each gray/blue block is an entire group of instruments) and the at the bottom you’ll see the three trumpet parts (played by the amazing Gerald Bailey). I recorded him using two mics at once- a ribbon mic gives the bulk of the sound, and then a large diaphragm condenser room mic is used to capture the brassy “bite” of the sound. In a perfect world I’d have an actual orchestra at my disposal, but to keep things simple and within our budget the rest is covered with Vienna Symphonic Library samples… Except for the “jug” track at the beginning, which I made by blowing into beer bottles filled to various degrees.

(CLICK to zoom)—

————————————————————————————————————

Whew!

Now, if you’re really curious, here’s my score + sound design without dialog track so you can hear all the details exposed:[video src=“http://blog.sondrolmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MadTeaParty_No-dialog_Sondrol.m4v” poster=“http://blog.sondrolmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MadTeaParty_poster_500x281.jpg” width=“500” height=“281”]

Finally, for comparison, here’s a clip I found on YouTube of the original cartoon (at least until Disney takes it down)- the “Unbirthday Song” starts at 0:32, and regular score starts at 0:54.



How’d I do?

Kudos to everyone else who worked on this: writer Dan Gurewitch, producer Ben Joseph, my old Chicago intern Josh Sauvageau, and of course Snark Rocket for nailing the animation.

New Card and Logo

My new business cards showed up in the mail yesterday! They were designed by the very talented Raphael Del Rio who described his work thusly:

“This has a strong art deco feeling because of the bold, tightly spaced lines and high arching typography. Think Los Angeles in the 1920s and 30s. The vertical lines are reminiscent of bar lines or the CDEFGAB layout on a keyboard which also happens to perfectly fit SONDROL. As you can see in the Invoice document sample this mark is vertically scalable for different uses […]”

What do you think? Was it.. “Why, look at that attention-grabbing yet stylish logo which cannot be contained by a single card side!! What sort of man would dare to be associated with such an uninhibited mark.. and what sort of wild music must he make!?”

Check out more of Raphael’s work here, then hire him immediately.

Seeking Intern(s)!

Loyal Blog Readers:

Now that I’ve had some time to settle into East Hollywood, it’s time to find an intern or two. I had a great experience working with Columbia Grad Josh Sauvageau back in Chicago, and am excited to see what kind of crazy talent I can find out here.

Here’s the info (I’ll leave this post up until the search is over):

[ And… removed. Wow, thanks for all the responses everybody! ]

Turn and Smile (a sitcom theme about sitcom themes)

This week I thought I’d do a quick write-up of a project completed before I had this blog called “Turn and Smile”. Basically, CollegeHumor asked me to make an 80’s sitcom theme a la Family Matters or Full House with piano, bass, and a scratchy soul singer. So, I listened to a LOT of sitcom themes on youtube, and did my best to incorporate the defining qualities of the genre into the above song.

My friend Hawk Colman is easily one of the best soul singers I know in Chicago and was a no-brainer for the lead vocal. I was dying laughing during the session, as Hawk is a natural with his delivery and knows exactly what lines to really sell and HOW to sell them (e.g. the way he sings “whichyo family” at 0:47, the slight character change at 1:10 for the “grouch” line, the airiness he throws in choice words for the outro at 1:26, etc). Also, when he sings “show’s created by THIS man” at 1:30 we discovered the way to get the perfect take was to have him VERY emphatically point at something when he sings “THIS”.

I remember the main note I gave him was “Hawk, that’s too soulful. Try to sound more like a white guy TRYING to sound like a black guy, and channel Rod Stewart”. And did he ever. I miss him greatly as a friend & musician out here in LA.

Max Crowe expertly laid down several layers of guitar, then I brought in a bunch of my best friends / neighbors for the gang vocals (Max, Alice Wedoff, Johanna Wiesbrock) and instructed them to sing as sitcomy as possible. Lastly, I added plenty of extra layers to stay true to the arranging style of that period: strings, french horn, and OF COURSE plenty of wind chimes.

Kudos to Vince Peone for directing, Dan Gurewitch for the lyrics, and to everyone else at CH for making such a solid video.

Many pop stars, one song (with Yvonne Strahovski)

Here’s something recent- a song written by Dan Gurewitch, starring Yvonne Strahovsky of Chuck, directed by Vince Peone, and produced by Leigh Myles.

This project had some pretty interesting requirements:

• A single singer to impersonate Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, and Justin Bieber
• Music production that switches to match each time the impersonation does

Enter Angela Ingersoll, one the most talented & hard-working singers I’ve worked with so far, below in gaga sunglasses:



In one marathon vocal session (the longest I’ve ever been in) she knocked out FIVE vocal impersonations (this includes a Taylor Swift section which was later cut for logistical reasons). She works really fast- vocal impersonation takes a long time no matter how you slice it. In this case we also had to make sure the characters were distinguishable from one another. Angela was constantly pushing for better and better takes to capture the subtleties of each singer, seemingly tireless even in a high key. As a producer I always hope for musicians with this kind of drive.

The shape-shifting music production was a nice challenge too. As this was very POP I didn’t need a lot of live musicians, but you’ll hear serial session player Max Crowe on guitar for the Katy Perry sections.

AXE COP 4... plus a little something special

It’s time once again to unveil a brand new episode of the

Axe Cop

motion comic! Per usual, my role was (very dense) music and sound design.

For those of you new to

Axe Cop

- it’s a popular webcomic written by a 5 year-old and illustrated by his 29 year-old brother (they’re now ~1.5 years older). I’m a big fan as I’ve never seen anything so perfectly capture the imagination of a child…

This one is special for a few reasons.. (

SPOILERS

below- I’d suggest watching the episode before reading)

1) It’s our first episode with DRAMA!

The

previous

episodes

I’ve worked on have been wall-to-wall intense action. Ethan Nicolle (the elder brother and artist) and I chatted on the phone before I started to make sure we were on the same page re: how the music’s tone should change through the course of the episode. Thus, you’ll get to hear some heartfelt drama cues and even a bit of my excellent EastWest Symphonic Choir samples for Uni-Avacado Soldier’s first wish.

2) “Axe!”

That music you hear in the end credits is indeed very closely inspired by Isaac Hayes’ classic “Shaft!”. Ethan had the idea of the giving Ralph Wrinkles a wonderfully deep/low voice and therefore asked if I could do something Shaft-ish for the walking-with-sunglasses scene. I quickly knew exactly who to call:

Will Wheaton

, a great singer I worked with on an

internet love song

somewhat recently. As I’ve mentioned before, Will was the guy that Southpark called in to voice “Chef” when Isaac Hayes was out sick. So obviously… he hit it out of the park.

Friend/collaborator

Angeline Gragasin

and I handled background vocals (mostly Angeline.. my falsetto only serves to help fill it out a bit, hehe). Session favorite Max Crowe provided porno guitars, Chris Murphy played trombone and I dusted off my trumpet to play a few stabs as well.

This project was a lotttttt of work/fun. (same thing, right??)

Lastly, Webby Update: Looks like we couldn’t beat Galifianakis & Bieber for “Best Comedy Short”. But as our video had no celebs I think we held our own pretty nicely. Thank you everyone who voted!

It's Webby season.. vote for us!

I’m very excited to announce that another short I scored for CollegeHumor is up for a Webby Award (considered the “Oscar” of the internet). We’re in a tough battle against a slew of celebrities (Steve Carrell, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bieber to name a few) You can vote for “Grammar Nazis” by clicking HERE.

Sam Reich directed, Vince Peone and Josh Ruben starred. Oh, and hey! My friends at Gloo Studios handled VFX- you might remember their amazing visual work on our winning Pixar Intro Parody last year. Kudos to everyone involved, though- I think it’s one of CH’s best.



Here’s my original write-up on the project from May of last year:

I had a fun time scoring this pitch perfect Inglorious Basterds Parody. I even play a bit of accordion for the intro (a la the Nick Perito piece in the real film) over a whopping 3 chords by regular session player Max Crowe. For the rest of the score we decided on subtle tension building, with a big swell at the end.

I’m in total awe of Josh and Vince’s acting in this one.

Last but not least, huge congrats to my friends Jonathon Grimm and Giancarlo Fiorentini for their nomimation. You can see and vote for “Facebook Ruins Job Interview” here.

p.s. CH has another nomination for Girls are Bad at Sound Effects. Yeah!

Chicago Screening

I’m excited to be returning for my 3rd year to the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival!

Tortue, an experimental short I scored for David Fishel will be screening before the documentary “Sound It Out”:

Saturday, April 16th, 3 pmWicker Park Arts Center, 2215 W. North Ave



You’ll find this and other films listed on Saturday’s screening schedule, here. Come say hi, Chicago friends!

An original song about the Internet

This is one of my favorite recent projects, for a few reasons:

First, I got to write all the music and had a good amount of creative freedom. Expert internet humorist Streeter Seidell wrote the meme-packed lyrics and gave some basic direction (a deep sexy voice rapping the verses with occasional singing, a chorus that “swells”, etc). I had fun layering in different stuff to build as the song goes on… pianos, vibes, mellotron, synthesizers, and even brass.

Secondly, I got to work with some great musicians. Will Wheaton is featured in the verses, and seems to have the deepest sexiest voice in LA (he’s subbed for Isaac Hayes on Southpark if that gives you an idea of his caliber). He’s extremely hardworking and nailed all the details.

Singer/actor Matt Geiler is the prominent voice in the chorus and you can also hear him “emoting” throughout the verses. He had me laughing a lot during the session with his spot-on pop adlibs.

I also brought in my friend Greg Nicolett to season the last chorus with trombone and I played some trumpet as well.

Josh Ruben directed the video. Enjoy!