NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 2014: Located in the heart of Manhattan, Heavy Melody Music composes original tracks for film and video game trailers, designs sound and music for video games and television, and functions as a post-production facility. Four friends run the studio, as well as software development company Heavyocity Media – a resource for composers and sound designers looking for production-ready musical and sound design elements. Producing for both companies requires a wide range of technical audio needs, which is why each of Heavy Melody’s composing rooms uses THE BOX®, the latest recording and mixing innovation from API.
Heavy Melody was founded in 2003 by Dave Fraser and Neil Goldberg as a new music and sound design company focusing on video game audio and music for advertising. Today, the team focuses on original music for motion picture advertising and video game trailers. “As soon as the release of THE BOX was announced, I was running around the studio showing the guys what it was. We HAD to get them,” recalls Neil. “We saw THE BOX as a solution to getting a really big sound in a small footprint, with a lot of the great features found in large format consoles.”
The studio has three albums out, and also creates custom trailer and spot work, as well as dialog casting and recording for games and TV spots. Much of the sound capturing and mixing for Heavyocity’s “DM-307” virtual instrument was done through THE BOX, as well as some custom revisions for tracks on the trailer album God Machine. “We noticed a significant difference in punch and depth, said Neil. “Running the analog synth percussion sound through THE BOX produced some amazingly heavy tones with a great, transparent top.”
The group isn’t a stranger to API, and has used the brand’s microphone pre’s for previous projects. Among the studio’s favorite feature on THE BOX is the Talkback system. “THE BOX has all of my favorite features rolled into one with the API sound,” said Neil. “I was excited that it had four mic/line input channels with the 500 Series EQ, a stereo bus compressor, and a sixteen-input summing mixer with sends/inserts and the headroom and character of API.”
“It has a great bottom end,” shares partner, composer, and sound designer Ari Winters. “The sound that comes out is punchy, yet transparent. With sixteen channels, you get a ton of headroom, that comes together nicely with the on-board compressor.”
While compact in size compared to a larger format studio console, THE BOX is capable of seeing projects through from start to finish, which is something Ari appreciates. “It’s an all-in-one solution for us as composers. It allows us to have multiple computers linked together, spitting out a ton of stems at very high output levels. Also, we now have the ability to monitor and record live microphones without ‘in the box’ latency.”
Co-Founder Dave Fraser sums it up easily, “What can we say, THE BOX is a beast.”
ABOUT API (AUTOMATED PROCESSES, INC.) Established more than 45 years ago, Automated Processes, Inc. is the leader in analog recording gear with the Vision, Legacy Series, 1608 and THE BOX recording consoles, as well as its classic line of modular signal processing equipment.
(PHOTO CAPTIONS) IMAGE 1: The crew at Heavy Melody from left to right: Ari Winters, George Valavanis, Neil Goldberg, and Dave Fraser. IMAGE 2: Co-Founder/Composer/Sound Designer Dave Fraser’s room.
