In 1996, after a few years of of playing in bands from coast to coast and overseas—living the rock and roll dream!—I settled into the post-production industry at local production facility TeleEdit. A natural fit for me, the role of audio engineer gave me a chance to employ the skills I had garnered from countless hours in studios and on stages across the country.
I left Splice Here in 2010 to found Uproar Music And Sound, where I continue my tradition of musical exploration and world-class service to top corporate and agency clients.
For years I’ve been blurring the lines between traditional sound design and original music composition, replacing the customary whooshes and dings that bring a video to life with musical elements that can add entirely new dimensions.
I call the result musical sound design, and it’s become my signature skill. This Best Buy video is a good example of what I’m talking about:
Musical sound design uses musical elements—melody, harmony and rhythm—to complement the action, color the mood or add drama to a video. When done well, it not only adds sparkle and depth to a video, but makes it sound custom-scored. It’s a great option for customers looking to save money but who still want a premium feel for their project.
As a multi-instrumentalist who spent years writing and performing music before becoming a studio guy, I’ve really loved developing the vocabulary of musical sound design.
News from Uproar Music and Sound
The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul’s 34th annual International
1. Not everyone likes The Residents. Just because I think
Very excited that an animated short I worked on last
Tonight at 8pm on TPT-MN channel 2.2. The television premiere
I’ve been working in digital audio pretty much since the “early days”, cutting actual tape only a handful of times. I remember the first time I fixed a voiceover, to make a word a plural instead of singular, e.g., adding an “s.” I remember thinking, “this changes everything!”
Editing and mixing is an artform in itself. Making it “sound good” is only a small part of the whole picture. It needs to flow. It needs to make aural sense. We audio folk can be kind of geeky in our quest for perfect sound. Consider me among that group!
Whether it’s finding the right piece of stock music, or the right voice for narration, a mix is a creative challenge each and every time. You can trust Uproar to make your project shine!
Music is what got me into being an audio engineer in the first place. Over the years I’ve played many different instruments and many different styles. My first love is rock and roll in all its various forms, but I’m a fan of jazz, exotica, experimental, classical, and country as well. I’m always listening for new sounds, and love discovering an old band or artist I’d never heard before.
The right music helps set the mood, or set the pace, or add to the humor. Sometimes it’s like solving a puzzle, sometimes it’s like searching for a key to unlock the right feeling. Writing music is creative and challenging, but never boring!
I am fortunate to have cultivated a large network of talented composers and musicians. Collaboration can help take a piece of music to a place you wouldn’t have initially envisioned.
Sound design can help take a spot or video from flat to textured. It can be literal or not. It can involve taking sounds you would recognize and turning them into something completely new.
At Uproar Music and Sound I specialize in “musical sound design”: Accenting movement and ideas with sounds that intrinsically weave into the score. Animated pieces provide a special opportunity to work the sound design elements into a piece of music.
Creating sounds never heard before, complimenting the visual artistry – that’s what sound design means to me.
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