Jason Altshuler, owner of full-service audio post production house Silverlake Sounds, has purchased a second Dual 15 Workstation from Argosy Console Inc.. This latest Dual 15 Workstation has been installed in a tracking and 5.1 mixing room used by ZOOmania Music, the music side of the business.
ZOOmania Music is mainly occupied by staff engineer and mixer Aaron Seiter, but is also available to the company’s roster of composers.
Installing a second Dual 15 Workstation was an easy decision, according to Altshuler, a veteran TV and film sound mixer and editor who installed the first Argosy workstation in his audio post production suite in late 2012.
“I love the Argosy workstation so much for my own room: the ergonomics of it, where the rack equipment sits and the ease-of-use for our outboard gear.” The new workstation, like Altshuler’s, includes two 8RU equipment bays plus additional rack space to the rear of the console and shelves below.
There is a wide variety of audio equipment in the music room, he reports, and the Argosy workstation allows all of the essential gear to be located close to the operator.
“We’re running a Universal Audio Apollo interface, some compressors and an Apogee converter in there, with Furman power controls. We have a Genelec 5.1 speaker setup with SPL monitor control, and we’re also running Auratone speakers as a TV monitor mix.”
Altshuler explains, “My original company, Silverlake Sounds is a post production sound company related to mixing, sound design, music editorial and music supervision for film and TV.
“We started getting a lot of requests for music and composer suggestions, and custom music, so I developed Zoomania Music with a partner, Jeremy Smith. We do custom work and underscore for feature films, trailers, TV shows and TV show promos.”
ZOOmania has signed eight composers to its roster, covering all genres of music, including electronica and dubstep, hip-hop, orchestral and indie rock.
“Our various composers have their set-ups at home, but much of the time, they come into the room to collaborate and work together,” he adds. “Jeremy and I do tracking in there as well.”
ZOOmania Music also operates as a boutique publishing and music production company, he continues. “We have five or six artists that we’ve signed. We administer their publishing through ZOOmania Music.
“We’ve just finished an EP for one of our bands, Fate Under Fire. Jeremy Smith produced the record and Eric Robinson mixed it. We just got them placed with a theme song for a new show on CBS.”
The music room also houses a variety of vintage guitar amplifiers, including a 1972 Orange head of the type favored by Black Sabbath, says Altshuler. “We’re able to put a guitar head on the shelf level of the Argosy and plug directly in, which then connects to our sound room where our speaker cabinets are, which is really helpful.
“The workstation has got a lot of desk space, which helps when we’re writing music.”
The room is also well stocked with instruments: “We have a ’72 Martin, a ’67 Dovetail, a ’47 Silvertone that I bought off of Steven Segal, an old dobro from the ‘30s and we have some old lap steel slide guitars from the ‘30s.
“Then, there’s an assortment of vintage Stratocasters, Telecasters and we have a ’69 Ovation hollow body that we use to write a lot with. There are a couple of P-basses. Sometimes we’ll just set up the drums right in the room, mic it up and run it straight into the Apogee. There’s a lot of noise coming out of that room!”
