New Orleans, LA (June 26, 2024)—Production mixer Chris Welcker of Catgut Sound and his team built a system around the Sound Devices Scorpio and 833 mixer-recorders to capture the dialog and ambiance of Amazon Prime series Daisy Jones & the Six.
A former music major with experience both on stage and running live sound, Welcker was immediately intrigued by the sonic possibilities of Daisy Jones & the Six, which is about the 1970s music scene in Los Angeles. “Working in the sound department on a music-focused series brings an added layer of complexity that felt very familiar to me having been a musician and performer myself,” Welcker says. “My boom operator/music playback operator, Ryan Farris, and I first met playing in bands that shared the stage back when we were in college, so working on this sort of project is exciting for us as it brings us back to our roots.”
He continues, “There are all sorts of sound elements that come with performing music that are impossible to recreate from scratch in a convincing way in post-production. The ambient sound picked up by vocal microphones versus boom and lavalier mics in a practice room for example, or the hum of the amps and crowd sounds during a live performance are all elements that can be used to create a more natural sound experience so the viewer can just get lost in the story.
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“We wanted to capture all of this as well as create a streamlined production workflow for the high audio track count that this series required. I designed a system around my Sound Devices gear that would allow me to use networked audio via Dante so that we could capture and deliver everything we needed without any delays to production.”
Welcker utilized the Sound Devices Scorpio and 833 mixer-recorders as well as a MixPre-6 for Ambisonics for sound recording on set. Inputs were provided from a pair of Allen & Heath DT168 stage boxes and an Audio Limited A10 rack. They were routed to and from the Scorpio as well as a set of RME Digiface Dante interfaces. All that captured a high track count at top quality with a minimum of cabling and most importantly, ultra-low latency.
“Being a team composed of musicians and artists ourselves, we get a lot of satisfaction out of recognizing and integrating all of these elements into the mix,” Welcker says, “and having the right gear is essential to doing that well.”
