Remote audio takes center-stage during COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic forces all non-essential businesses to move to remote work, recording studios, artists, and producers are getting increasingly creative and flexible in making remote recording a feasible replacement for the in-studio experience. At Dubway, we’ve been doing remote recordings for years, but there’s no time like the present to iterate and consider the various alternative options that are popping up during the crisis. If you’re an artist or producer looking to make a deadline or hit the studio, read on to hear a bit about how we can make that happen, and if you’re an engineer, we’ll have some tips for you as well.

Dubway has offered a variety of remote sessions for artists and actors for nearly two decades. Many of our post-production and VO clients have worked remote or semi-remote for years and are already (more or less) adjusted to a socially-distant workplace. When we have no clients in-studio, we have a number of ways of recording audio that’s every bit as high-quality as the in-studio recording chain. If the client has a DAW on their side, the best solution is generally a stable remote connection via an ISDN replacement like SourceConnect, which we use extensively. For some clients without a DAW, we can offer in-home services, such as setting them up with a recording platform and mic, monitoring remotely, and then receiving the recordings to edit and mix in our studio environment. Dubway engineer Zach Grappone has had great results using in-home recording platforms with some of our podcasting clients, including CloudBerry. Whether you’re looking to dub vocals, record your podcast, or get edits on mixes, we can ensure the sound will be every bit as professional. When coupled with the now-ubiquitous Zoom app, it’s the next-best thing to being in the room—the same results, but with no commute!

For producers, we also have an extensive network of VO talent with in-home recording environments of their own, and we are more than happy to offer booking services, alongside the entire end-to-end audio process of recording, editing, mixing, and mastering your projects.

Our engineers have been getting creative as well, testing and comparing various technological strategies for different remote workflows. For those curious, we’ve found our favorite apps during this have included the aforementioned SourceConnect and Zoom, and we’ve been having success using the Open Broadcaster Software Project’s eponymous OBS to stream ProTools with relatively low latency to YouTube Live, Facebook Live, and Twitch; we’ve also heard great things (and seen some cool results) using Listento from Audiomovers, which is like a more affordable SourceConnect, without the ISDN part. Operations Manager Nathaniel Reichman lead the team in a test of some of these technologies’ latency results, and has been using them to successfully conduct mixes with remote production teams (he swears by SourceConnect and OBS).

While the pandemic is certainly worrying for every industry, we’re committed at Dubway to do our best to make sure it has as little impact on our work together as possible. If you have questions about our remote options, session-specific inquiries, or want to let us in on another helpful tool, you can always drop us a line at our general contact email (info@dubway.com)—we love hearing from you!

National Speakers Association hosts marathon podcast session

Bruce Weinstein of the National Speakers Association, left, with Dubway engineer Louis Fisher.

Last month we welcomed the National Speakers Association for an all-day session, recording back-to-back podcasts in our Blue Room suite. The sessions were produced and hosted by the National Speakers Association’s Bruce Weinstein, and engineered by Dubway’s own Louis Fisher. Over the course of the day Fisher and Weinstein conducted eight hour-long interviews with Weinstein’s various guests.

Check out the National Speakers Association’s work here, and some photos from the sessions below. As soon as these episodes are ready to be released, we’ll post about it here – stay tuned!

#TBT: Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill

To keep spirits up while the studios are quieter than normal, we’re bringing back some of our favorite projects, stories, and collaborations. #TBT this week comes courtesy of our colleagues at The Intercept.

In 2018 (it feels like a century ago), we recorded a theatrical drama, produced by The Intercept’s Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill podcast, called Evening At The Talk House. Dubway’s Sam Palumbo engineered these sessions in our Mezzanine studio, which were attended by writer/star Wallace Shawn, director Scott Elliott, Matthew Broderick, Claudia Shear, and more. The actors performed the radioplay together in front of mics – almost like a fully-acted-and-microphone’d table read – with additional sound design and music added in post-production. It was an honor to work with such great talent, and we think the project sounds pretty amazing, too.

You can take a trip down memory lane with us by listening to the radio drama here, and check out the entire catalog of Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill here.

Dubway in the time of COVID-19

As we’ve all felt in New York and elsewhere, the novel COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus has rocketed through our communities, and despite containment efforts, the virus is still spreading.

Dubway is taking every precaution to make sure our staff and clients stay healthy and safe during this trying time. Part of the effort to address the spread of the virus includes assessing various remote (home) recording options. There are many varieties of remote connection, and we’re happy to collaborate in finding options that work for your production. Should you have any questions about precautionary measures we've taken and continue to take, send us an email or give us a call and we’d be happy to answer!

We know the creative community is hurting, so please reach out if you have questions or thoughts you need to share while social distancing. The office may be empty during the stay-at-home order, but we’re always reachable via email.

Stay safe, be well, be kind to each other, and we’ll see you all on the other side!

Vox Media brings two shows to Dubway

Media powerhouse Vox spent an afternoon this past week recording two of its popular podcast options with Dubway engineer Pascal McGilvray-Guard. The session covered recordings for both Recode Decode, which covers technology-related news and ideas, and Pivot, a similarly-focused show that also brings in additional business, economic, and political analysis. Both shows feature journalist, writer, and political commentator Kara Swisher in both production and talent roles.

We’ve worked with Vox Media on a number of projects, including their podcasts The Weeds, Switched On Pop, and Today, Explained, and always enjoy the professionalism and detail their production teams bring to each session.

You can check out the episodes on their respective pages, above, or find any of Vox Media’s shows wherever you get your podcasts.

Pascal McGilvray-Guard and Kara Swisher in our Blue Room as the session wrapped.

"The Lies We Tell" – Now live!

We’re so excited to announce former Radiolab executive producer Ellen Horne and Alex Gibney and Jigsaw Productions’ new collaborative podcast with Luminary, Lies We Tell, is now live! This has been in the works for some time – we mentioned the project in this write up last month – but is now finally available for you to listen to!

Lies We Tell “uncover(s) basic truths about human nature — by untangling twisted true stories set in motion by lies.” To do this, producer Alex Gibney and his team interview controversial public figures with well-known (and generally dubious) cultural narratives, and attempt to get to the heart of the deception that lies within these narratives. Dubway’s own Violette Furton has sat behind the boards for these sessions, recording interviews that can run the full emotional gamut as the investigative and production teams tackle difficult histories and subjects.

Congratulations to those involved – check it out on Luminary today!

Merter Yildirim, tape transfer specialist, transfers vintage MLK speech recordings

National Park Service, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

We don’t get to highlight the work of Merter Yildirim, one of our best engineers, often enough. Unlike many of our other engineers, who may specialize in recording live audio from performers and voice actors, mixing music and television/movies, or recording on film sets and productions, Merter’s speciality is recording sounds that have already been recorded, but have outlasted the medium they were imprinted on. Merter is a transfer engineer, someone who can take your old damaged tape, vinyl, ADAT reels, or almost any other recording medium, and carefully restore and convert it into a high-quality digital transfer, able to stand the test of time.

That’s why, when cool, delicate projects like restoring and transferring a copy of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech comes around, we call Merter. This project was completed for Lisa Berman, who needed an old copy of the speech carefully transferred from a crumbling record to a fresh, digital file. These past few months alone, Merter has transferred recordings for Salman Rushdie, RZA of Wu-Tang, and Philippe Halsman’s son Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, who trust his careful ear and skilled use of processing units – noise reduction, compression, EQ, filtering – to bring out the best possible elements of the original recordings.

If you ever decide those old memories ought to be preserved forever and need a practiced, steady hand to get the job done, give us a call. We’ll call Merter!

Harper Collins records "John Maxwell Leadership Podcast" with Tom Golisano

We had the pleasure of recently recording a Harper Collins Publishing production, the excellent John Maxwell Leadership Podcast, featuring as a guest the noted entrepreneur and billionaire Tom Golisano. Golisano recently became an author, and his published guide to entrepreneurship, Built Not Born, was the topic of the day.

The book covers Golisano’s career in entrepreneurial businesses including Paychex, the payroll service which he founded and still chairs, and which rocketed him to billionaire status. Recording was helmed by Dubway’s Violette Furton with Harper Collins producers in attendance to help direct the conversation as needed.

Thanks to all participants, our engineer, and Harper Collins. You can find the podcast on the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast page, or anywhere quality podcasts are found.

Next week – audio marketing panel featuring lead engineer Nathaniel Reichman!

Interested in transforming your brand into sound, giving your company a trademark “voice”, or in how current trends work in these spaces? If you answered yes to any of these, you’d probably love the upcoming panel discussion at Overit in Albany, one week from today, featuring our very own lead engineer Nathaniel Reichman! We’re biased, but we couldn’t pick a better panelist.

The discussion will be held on February 25th at 5:30pm; event info and tickets can be found at the Eventbrite page. For those in marketing, branding, and PR production for A/V media, you won’t want to miss this.

John Krasinski, Brian Baumgartner, Matt Sohn in the Mezzanine

There’s not much yet we can say about a little Dunder-Mifflin reunion that took place in our Mezzanine studio suite recently, but what we can do is share this great photo (that ended up at People Magazine) of buds John Krasinski and Brian Baumgartner hugging it out in the live room. Engineer Zach Grappone presided over the visit.

Check out the People post and stay tuned for more announcements!

New podcast announced from Jigsaw Productions, "Lies We Tell"

Documentary powerhouse Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions has announced a new podcast, Lies We Tell, which we’re thrilled to be involved in! The episodic show deals with “character-driven” puzzles revolving around deception, and the team behind it couldn’t be better: in additional to Gibney, the production team includes former Radiolab executive producer Ellen Horne, Jigsaw producer Clare Sloane Vance, and a full team of reporters.

Interviews for the podcast have been conducted at Dubway, and have been primarily recorded by staff engineer Violette Furton. The show itself is slated for a fast-approaching release in March. Lies We Tell will be available through the boutique podcast network Luminary, a platform we’ve been proud to partner with on a variety of podcasts.

Check out the podcast in March – we can guarantee a deeply interesting listen!

"Hear To Slay" with featured guest Jenna Wortham

Jennydeluxeeee, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

One of our favorite regular podcasts, Hear To Slay, brought an amazing guest – Jenna Wortham, a New York Times staff writer and the co-host of the wonderful culture podcast Still Processing (alongside NYT writer Wesley Morris) – into our studios for a recent episode. The show, which aired on 1/21 (you can listen here with a Luminary subscription), covered technology, boundaries, and a ton within and without those bounds, as hosts Roxanne Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom tend to do.

We love everything about this show, and it’s always a treat when they come into the studios, usually with some of the best guests around in tow.

Hear To Slay interviews recorded at Dubway are engineered by staff engineer Violette Furton, whether that means in-studio, over Skype, or by phone from some far-flung location.

If you’d like to hear more from Jenna Wortham, you can read her columns in the NYTimes Magazine, or find her podcast here (or wherever you get your podcasts). And as always: if you don’t already know, go listen to Hear To Slay!

Mott Haven wins People's Choice Award at the Chandler International Film Festival

Michael Domino celebrating with the award at the CIFF red carpet.

We’re excited to announce that one of our absolute favorite projects of last year, Mott Haven, just received a well-deserved People’s Choice Award at the Chandler International Film Festival! Dubway engineers, including Al Houghton, Nathaniel Reichman, Louis Fisher, Violette Furton, Zac Suskevich, and Pascal McGilveray-Guard, managed and completed the audio post-production on the project from start to finish.

You can take a look at some of our previous posts on this project here and here.

Richard Kogan videos post produced at Dubway with producer Thomas Mowrey and Nathaniel Reichman

Dr. Richard Kogan presenting at Rockefeller University.

Following up on his extensive post-production work at Dubway with chief engineer Nathaniel Reichman for a CD of cellist Luis Leguia, Grammy Award winning classical producer Thomas Mowrey returned to Dubway in January. Their team, including Nathaniel and video engineer Zac Suskevich, has been hard at work on the audiovisual post-production of the renowned psychiatrist and concert pianist Richard Kogan’s lecture-recitals on Chopin and Scott Joplin.  

Nathaniel Reichman at the console.

Thomas Mowrey during playback.

Dr. Kogan’s programs on the psychological origins of musical creativity in the great composers are presented at prestigious venues throughout the world, including the World Economic Forum in Davos and Rockefeller University, in New York. 

Tom is planning to continue work with Nathaniel and Zac on a series of clips from Dr. Kogan’s performances.

Cam'ron feature film project, "Is It A Crime", in post-production at Dubway

Rapper, executive, and producer (does he need introducing?) Cam’ron and his team have been hard at work at Dubway’s New York studios recently, with several of our engineers assisting with post-production for the musician’s first feature-length film project, Is It A Crime. In the film, the Diplomats founder takes a turn in front of the camera as one of the leads, alongside actors Samantha Opitz (Welcome To New York) and Brian Stapf (The Walking Dead). Engineering on the Dubway side is being helmed by Louis Fisher.

This project is very much still in post and there’s not much else we can say about it currently, but while you wait, you can take a look at a trailer on Cam’s instagram or listen to one of his classic albums.

Dubway captures audience reactions to Guy Ritchie's newest film, "The Gentlemen", at Alamo Drafthouse

Dubway engineer Zac Suskevich took to the field recently with cameraman and documentarian Vwodek Wlodzimierz to capture audiences reactions as they left the theatera after viewing The Gentlemen, the newest feature from director/producer Guy Ritchie. The film screened at Alamo Drafthouse and stars Matthew McConaughey in the lead role. We won’t give anything else away – see the trailer below, and go see the movie in theaters!

Kelsey Lu records with Lauren Ford for Dazed Digital

True Panther Sounds and Columbia Records artist Kelsey Lu dropped in recently to record an interview with podcaster and producer Lauren Ford, for Dazed Digital’s podcasting wing. Dubway engineer Russell Castiglione captured the conversation in our Mezzanine studio (how many podcasts can say they’re recorded through an SSL 4064+ G Series console?).

Kelsey Lu is an exciting young artist with a super strong solo project and a bunch of credits to her name, including plenty of work alongside Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes. Check out her music video for Due West here, and the rest of her music and media on her website, linked above.

Keep an eye out for this conversation on Dazed and in the meantime, you can listen to a conversation here that the two of them had around the time Due West was released.

RZA transfers 2" tapes with Merter Yildirim

An A80 minding its own business.

Dubway recently had the honor of assessing & digitizing several classic recordings with the noted martial arts enthusiast and Wu-Tang Clan co-founder, RZA. Our transfer specialist, Merter Yildirim, did the honors. For projects like this we have (and maintain) our Studer A80, Mk IV 2” tape machine, a piece of equipment that’s becoming more and more of a relic these days.

Transfers like these can be extremely delicate processes, as the tape itself is often at risk for damage after long periods of storage, and needs to be brought back to life before the transfer can safely take place. Here’s what it sounds like when you transfer an old, crumbling tape. If you have a cherished recording whose value has outlived its format, give us a call.

We can handle nearly anything you can throw at us. Just please aim away from the Studer.

"Switched On Pop" with Vox Media

The team behind Vox Media’s hit podcast Switched On Pop recorded an interview in our studios for a recently aired episode, “Dolly Parton’s America”, which featured composer, podcast host, and resident Dolly Parton expert Jad Abumrad as the guest, along with hosts Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding, and producer Shima Oliaee.

The episode went live on Christmas Eve, and you can find it on the Vox page here (linked above as well) or wherever you get your podcasts – it’s a perfect listen for returning to the 9-to-5 grind after the holidays.

Shima Oliaee, Jad Abumrad, Charlie Harding, and Nate Sloan, in the Red Room after the session.

"Lets Talk About Cats" at Dubway

Steve Selvidge, Mary Philips, & Violette Furton.

One of our favorite podcasts, Let’s Talk About Cats, recently stopped into the studio to record an interview with engineer Violette Furton. Mary Phillips, the host of Let’s Talk About Cats (alongside producer Lizzie Jacobs), sat down with guitarist Steve Selvidge of The Hold Steady for one of the podcast’s trademark freewheeling conversations about feline companions. Violette Furton tracked the episode on the main floor of our facilities, in one of our pairs of linkable sound and control rooms.

Interviews on this show may start out as being all about cats, but inevitably swerve into related (and less related) territory. Let’s Talk About Cats episodes invariably include a lot about the interviewees that you just can’t get on a non-cat show – The A.V. Club featured a recent episode in their weekly best-of podcasts round up, claiming that Mary’s talent with guests has them, “revealing facets of themselves that would not surface in traditional formats”.

If you like cats and pop culture and haven’t heard this podcast yet, head to your nearest podcast platform to subscribe!