Henry Moyerman | Sound Designer

Moving Across the Counrty

2012-01-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

Happy new year!! The last month has been the busiest, craziest, most hectic, and most exciting month of my life. My last month summarized:

I finished my last semester of college, including my two final thesis projects for both of my majors (they can be viewed at here). I had less than three days to pack up my entire apartment, where I lived for the last three and a half years, finish saying goodbye to all of my friends in Boston, and leave in a U-Haul. I drove with my dad for two days to get to St. Louis. In the following two days in St. Louis I unpacked the entire U-Haul (with essentially my whole life in it) repacked it with more stuff, and tried to rest. I then drove for three days straight with my dad in a U-Haul to Los Angeles, CA.(including driving all day on my birthday) It took my friend Ryan, my dad, and myself four hours to unload the entire U-Haul into my new fabulous second story walkup apartment... without breaks! The next day was spent going to IKEA and beginning to unpack. The following day was Christmas, so my dad and I flew back to St. Louis. I was there for ten days, in order to be with family, rest, pack up my stuff for basement storage, etc. My girlfriend flew to St. Louis from Boston, her hometown, and together, we took four days to drive in my car to LA. It was much nicer than the U-Haul. I just spent the last week unpacking the entire apartment, making three more IKEA runs, putting together furniture, hanging curtains, organizing, etc. Currently, the apartment looks pretty good, and it should be amazing in a week. Meanwhile, I am continuing to search for a job as a sound designer and mix engineer for TV and Film. In a week, I will start going to a post production studio to meet a sound team, observe, and learn more about the industry. I am also working freelance on an animation currently. I am networking and looking for work everywhere. So... that was my month.

I will post with updates on my projects and my job search. Please email me if you have any questions or comments

P.S. My sound design work is now on Vimeo! You can view it through my website or on Vimieo.com.

Final Projects/Goodbye Boston

2011-12-12T17:36:00.001-08:00

I leave Boston for good in five short days. I will not get too emotional, but I will say this. Moving to California is the right thing for me. I am excited about my future. I want to say as many proper goodbyes to my friends in Boston as possible. The community I have become a part of at Berklee will be what I will miss most of all.

Back to audio stuff. I have finished all of my work, so it is time to pack. My two final projects are complete and on my sound design page. I am so happy with how they turned out. It took me all semester to finish them, balanced with other classes, and being the head engineer at the BIRN. Also, currently the videos on my sound design page are hosted through YouTube. In a few weeks, I will switch to Vimeo. Vimeo supports better quality, and it will mean that my work will be in more places. I will still continue to update and upload to my YouTube channel.

I will post about my road trip while it is happening. I am taking a truck with my stuff on Saturday from Boston to LA. I am flying home for Christmas, then driving my car from St. Louis to LA. Stay tuned for updates about my epic move, and please check out my final projects here. Please email me if you have any comments on my final days in Boston, my final projects, or anything else.

My Final Days in Boston

2011-11-29T15:52:00.001-08:00

Wow, my days here in Boston and here at Berklee are coming to a close. In a couple of weeks, I will be moving to Los Angeles, California. I have a new apartment waiting for me in Burbank. When I arrive I will have places to go and people to see, and hopefully that will lead me to my first job outside of college.

I will admit that now and for months now I have had mixed emotions about my big move. I realize that so far this will be the biggest life change I have ever made. I also know this initial period of trying to get my name out there will be the toughest period in my professional career. I have enjoyed my time in Boston and at Berklee so much. I have earned a tremendous reputation, befriended the best people, and really found my place. I suppose it always seems that when you truly get comfortable in a location and a community, you find it is time to leave and move on. As much as I have thoroughly enjoyed my Berklee education, they have taught me as much as they can. It is time for me to continue learning in my industry as a working professional. I will miss my friends and the city tremendously. But I will always visit and stay in touch with my friends, and I do not know that I will never return to Boston again. I will let my career take me where I need to go, and right now I know I need to be in LA.

While preparing to move, I of course have had to continue with my toughest semester here at Berklee. I am happy to say that my two final thesis projects are coming along very well. Both should be completed in about a week. The projects have individually taken close to a hundred hours to complete. I am in the mix stage, mixing the projects in 5.1 surround sound. I have had a great time on the projects and I will be proud to put them at the top of my sound portfolio. As soon as they are both finished, I will throw them up on my YouTube account and on the sound design page of my website. So check back in a few weeks to check those out! Please email me if you have any comments on my final days in Boston or anything else.

The Concert Hall

2011-10-15T16:18:00.001-07:00

"Hello everybody out there in beautiful radio land. You are of course listening to The Concert Hall with your host, me, DJ Hens here on the Berklee Internet Radio Network." If you have ever heard me say that, then you have heard my radio show, The Concert Hall. My show is on every Thursday from 4-6 PM on the BIRN. The show is a mix of classical, romantic, chamber music, minimalism, and much more. I am the only classical show on the station, so I have to make sure to have top notch programming. To listen you can go to thebirn.com or here. I am still the lead engineer at the station and I have already engineered six events this semester. I am having a blast, and I will be sad to go in December.

I am already deep into my last semester at Berklee College of music. My two most exciting and time-consuming projects are my capstone/thesis/final project for both of my majors. James Carlsen made a five and a half minute animation titled Overgames for his thesis project at Mass Art this past May. I am doing a complete soundtrack for the animation including dialogue recorded by me, original music, sound effects, foley, and everything else sonic. Later I will be mixing the animation in 5.1 surround sound. This weekend I will be recording the fourth and final character in the studios at Berklee. Overall the project is on schedule and going quite well. I am also making an original soundtrack for a demo reel from visual effects company One Size. I was sent this clip by an alum, I listened to the audio, and decided to outdo the original soundtrack. The reel is of dozens of clips put together, which presents a serious sound design challenge. Also, the music I write must be mellow enough to balance the chaotic visuals and give a sense of continuity to the piece. This week I will be finishing the sound design and sketching out my music.

As you know from the summer, I am still actively field recording to gain valuable material for my personal sound effects library. This week I recorded subway trains passing by, the mass turnpike, urban street ambiences, cafeteria ambiences, and more. There is so much in the world to record, I know I will be at this for decades to come. I am improving my setup, slating, and overall technique. I was even invited to teach a seminar at the Berklee on October 25th about field recording and mixing for picture. I am excited to teach this seminar and share what knowledge I have acquired on the subject. Please email me if you have any comments on The Concert Hall or anything else.

New Marimba Recordings

2011-09-02T14:10:00.000-07:00

I just returned to Boston for my last semester at Berklee College of Music. However, before I left, I was able to record myself playing two different marimba solos. I am really glad I was able to record these pieces, because I have wanted to have some really high quality marimba recordings of myself for a long time. I made a few recordings when I was much younger, and long before I knew what I know now about the recording arts. This time around, I knew what microphones to use, where to place them, the best equipment to record with, and the best editing practices. Also, I had a unique vision of what I wanted the finished recordings to sound like. I wanted the recordings to sound like you were listening a marimba player in a large concert Hall. Through what I know about mixing, I was able to accomplish this goal. Utilizing a unique set of processing tools in the computer, I was able to achieve a rich and reverberant sound like the sound I had imagined. I am quite happy with how these recordings turned out, and you can listen to them here on my new percussion page.

Like I mentioned earlier, I am now back in Boston. School has not quite started yet, so I am editing the vast amount of material that I recorded this summer for my personal sound effects library. I still might record a little more here in Boston, because of all the great urban ambiences I can capture here. I will post again later to let you know how the editing is going, and how I am enjoying my last semester. Please email me if you have any comments on my new marimba recordings.

Maya Mating Ritual

2011-07-23T10:55:00.001-07:00

That is the tittle of my latest sound design project. The animation is by my friend James Carlsen. It was a short computer animation example he made for a class while studying at MassArt. I took this clip as a personal challenge; to finish the entire soundtrack in under a week. I did accomplish this goal, which made me feel very secure in my own sound design skills, intuitions, and efficiency. This clip was also my first chance to use my new home studio setup, including my new iMac, Pro Tools 9, Audiofinder, and the sound design suite of plugins by Waves. You can watch this latest project of mine here. James also made a five minute animation this past year that I am doing the sound design for, as one of my thesis projects for Berklee this fall.

Additionally I am still field recording. I had the unique opportunity a few weeks ago to record three nights in a row of fireworks. One night, I was allowed to get 70 feet away from where the fireworks were launched. That was an experience I will never forget; I have never been in presence of such intense sound waves before in my life! The sounds were great, and it was a tremendous experience. Tomorrow I will be going to a hospital after hours to record their machines, I am very excited!! Well, as always, please email me if you have any comments on Maya Mating Ritual.

Spring 2011

2011-06-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

Almost two months ago, I finished the best and busiest semester I have had at Berklee College of Music. I fell behind on this blog because I had so much going on in my life. But now that it is the summer, I am busy but less busy, and I can catch everyone up.

Last semester I took a course in sound design for animation. I learned so much from this class. I collaborated with two animators from MassArt on a total of four animations this spring. I learned about the right questions to ask an animator or director, and how to phrase them. I truly began to understand how sound supports and helps tell the story, and is not just to help make the film realistic. I have now made some great connections and friendships at MassArt and will continue to collaborate on their animations this summer, fall, and hopefully into next year. You can view these animations with my original soundtracks here.

I took my last course in art history this past semester. My course emphasized post-modern art. The required final project was to make a modern work of art. I chose to write an original piece of electronic music and set it to sped up video. I recorded the video myself around Boston and recorded myself working in a recording studio. I am very happy with how the piece turned out and you can watch it here.

I took my first and last course in audio for video games this spring. I learned a great deal from the course, including the fact that I do not wish to work in the gaming industry. I really love the linear workflow of film, and the video game environment had too many variables for me. Plus, audio for video games involves a lot of programming, something I enjoy doing as a hobby, not as a career.

I also finished my last collaboration with another audio person for quite some time. For the last year, I have worked with the great Ryan Monette on all Music Production & Engineering projects. He graduated this may, and so we completed our last project together while students. We took a seven minute clip from Toy Story 3 and replaced all of the sound for it. Foley, effects, dialogue, backgrounds, everything! We ended up editing in the original score because our composer never delivered any music to us; you cannot trust everyone I guess. It is the largest project either of us had undertaken, and it can be viewed here.

While writing this, I realize I have not written about my new job. In February, I became the Staff Engineer at the Berklee Internet Radio Network (BIRN). Over the course of the semester, I engineered over twenty in-studio performances and red room shows for broadcast. Upon my return to Berklee this fall, I will be the Head of Studio Operations. I will also have a radio show called The Concert Hall. Stay tuned for more info about the show!

This fall will be my last semester at Berklee. I am taking my two thesis courses and three electives. After that, I will be moving to Los Angeles to begin my career as a professional sound designer for TV and Film. I have had a great time at Berklee, and I will miss it. However, I am ready to leave. I have learned what I can, and now it is time to learn from my employers.

One might wonder then what I am doing until this fall. Well, this summer I have chosen to fill my time in a very interesting way. I have decided to upgrade my studio to a near professional level and start building my own large sound effect library. I started the summer by ordered a new iMac as well as a slew of equipment and software for my new home studio. One of the coolest piece of equipment I acquired was a Sound Devices professional 2-track field recorder. After finishing setting up my home rig, I began recording anything and everything. I am still in the middle of the process, but I have collected about 150 sounds so far. Mostly household, but I have a recorded storms, cicadas, beaches, tornado sirens, and restaurants as well. I am also doing the sound design for a short animation and recording some of my own marimba pieces this summer. I will keep you posted this summer on my field recording exploits. This weekend I will be recording three nights of fireworks, so check back to here how that went. As always, please email me if you have any comments on the first half of my year.

Winter Break

2010-12-20T22:40:00.001-08:00

Wow, what a semester! I have accomplished so much in these past few months. I substitute taught a class for Prince Charles Alexander, taught a seminar on web design, hung out personally with Alessandro Cortini, built a Super-Collage-a-Tron application distributed on the Csound website, was invited to be one of the first MP&E peer advisors, and was invited to become a broadcast engineer for the BIRN and mix for their new record label. On top of all of that, I have three new tracks online; my latest mix, production, and composition.

It was so much work to finish all of my projects, but I learned so much. I am continuing to gain confidence in both my technical and creative abilities. I am making more and more positive professional relationships that will help me in my future. I am still loving my work, and have no doubt in my mind that I am at the right place doing the right thing!

I am currently taking a well deserved break. I am practicing drumset, marimba, and learning javascript when I feel like it. I start again with a bang in the spring, taking three sound design classes, three history classes, and an electronics course. Please email me if you have any comments on my new music.

December in November

2010-11-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

Well, Fall has arrived quickly here in Boston. It is cold, and the studio is a welcome shelter. School has kept me busy, but not without the occasional reward. I am very happy to be able to put up my latest recording. The song is called December and is written and performed by the Berklee student band Future Vince. You can listen to this incredibly powerful ballad here on my website. The song marks a turning point for me in my engineering career. I was able to record this band in four hours, then mix the song song just two days later. Of course I have the musicians to thanks, but if it were not for my instrument placement, isolation, microphone choices, outboard gear choices, and other critical decisions; I never could have captured their sound so well. I was able to take a song that a band knew, and make it sound like a record in just a few days. I was able to turn a sonic idea in my head into a reality. That gives me a great deal of confidence and reassurance in my abilities. Please email me if you have any comments on the song.

Bioshock

2010-10-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween Everyone!!!!! Well, midterms week is over. I have been really busy, but I finally feel like things are under control for me academically. I have been learning a great deal in the realm of music technology. I did come out of the first half of this semester with a great project, and that is what I am going to talk about.

My midterm project for Advanced Studies in Digital Sampling was to design original audio and record original dialogue for a video game trailer. The clip I was given was from the video game Bioshock. I was teamed up with film scoring major Sam Marshall who wrote original music for the clip. After meeting with Sam for a spotting session, our vision seemed clear: make the clip dark, epic, and over the top. I recorded Landon Chapman and Mallory Johns for my two voice overs. To make the voices sound like they came from a small speaker, I recorded the voices playing through a blown out earbud. I created dozens of sounds for the clip. One of the must time consuming elements was adding in the sound of the neon signs. I had to watch the clip frame by frame so the sound would cut out at all the right times.

After Sam had recorded musicians performing his original music, I imported his music into my master session. I took the lead on the surround sound mix for this clip. The biggest choice I made was to bring my ambiences and the music down, and to bring the dialogue and sudden sound effects up. The video on my sound design page is a stereo fold-down of the surround sound mix. I am very happy with how the project turned out. Please email me if you have any comments on the clip.

Gary Burton

2010-10-10T23:09:00.001-07:00

Happy 10/10/10 everyone. I am still recovering from this Friday when I helped my professor Alejandro Rodriguez mix Gary Burton's BPC show from April. The concert is going to be played on NPR. Gary was very nice, but did not have too much to say all day. We had a few short discussions which was nice, and he was only there for a few hours. I was there from 9AM all the way until 1AM. I started by labeling the tracks in Pro Tools, and ended by burning CD's and backing up the sessions. Even though there were many times I had nothing to do, I got to listen a lot and watch my teacher's method for mixing. I am now more confident because his workflow was very similar to my own. I also was able to help trouble shoot and teach him a few tricks of my own!

I am also extremely busy with school right now. I am currently enjoying the long Columbus day weekend. I am working on a video game trailer that will be up on the site in about three weeks. I am also coming close to finishing my midterm production with Justin Schwenk, which will also be up on the site in about a month. So lookout for all of that! Please email me if you have any comments.

New Home Page and New Feel

2010-09-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I have made a few changes to my site over the past couple of days. I have finally figured out how to efficiently get my homepage to generate random photos from a folder. This effectively made the homepage more exciting and eliminated the need for a gallery. I currently have seven photos from my recent mix session at ShockCity Studios. You can see the new homepage here. I also added a new song to my production page. The homepage photos are of me mixing this particular song by Jake Sherman. Special thanks to my dad for taking the photos, that I then modified to fit the new feel of my site.

The site’s new feel has come about due to a few simple changes. My sidebar image is now a grey stoney texture. A few minor changes around the site help match the site to the new tone. Also, all videos on my site are bow quicktime, which is very nice.

My classes have just started, and already I have a mountain of work. My projects though keep getting more challenging and therefore the outcome keeps getting better as well. As usual, please email me if you have any comments.

LinkedIn, Google, & This New Blog

2010-08-30T16:37:00.001-07:00

As you can clearly see, I have changed the formant of my blog. It is here at Blogspot, and I quite enjoy that. This site automatically generates an RSS feed which is my favorite feature. This feed is embedded on every page of my website. I also have a backup blog still on my site, which you can view here.

I also have created a LinkedIn profile and a profile with Google. I am trying to make it as easy as possible for people to find out more about me. I have also been making subtle adjustments to the rest of my website; cleaning up the code, embedding an icon, eliminating my contact page, updating my resume, and many other changes.

I am about to start my sixth semester at Berklee. It will be my busiest and most difficult semester yet, but I am really looking forward to it. Stayed tune for more about my upcoming classes. Please email me if you have any comments.

Sherlock Holmes/Heartbeats

2010-08-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

Well, the summer semester is over. It was one of the longest three months of my life, and I cannot recall ever working harder. This website though should showcase how much I was able to accomplish. Out of the numerous projects from this summer, six are online.

The two latest uploads are my sound alike project and my sound design project. My sound alike assignment was to take a popular song and try to recreate it as accurately as possible. The song I chose to recreate was Heartbeats by The Knife. I was lucky enough to record the very talented Julia Easterlin on vocals. It was unbelievably difficult to pick apart a song and all of its elements, then try to recreate them. Also, putting those elements all back together was another huge challenge. I am pleased with what I came up with, but I could not have done it without the encouragement of my friends in both the MP&E and EPD departments.

The sound design project is a clip from Sherlock Homles that has been stripped of its original audio and replaced with all original audio. Through coaching actors for original voiceover work and designing sound elements such as punches and crowd ambiences, I was able to make a believable soundtrack for this clip. This is my second major sound design undertaking. I should have at least one new clip every semester. I had a blast working on this project, because it is similar to my career ambitions.

Stay tuned for more, including a new blog format and a new homepage. Please email me if you have any comments.

Site Reconstruction

2010-07-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

It has been a little while since my last entry, I have been quite busy. I am currently redesigning the site, again. The newer format will showcase more of my works and will help reflect the content of the logo. I have three great mixes I have put up that I have worked on already this summer. I am currently finishing my sound alike of Heartbeats by The Knife. I am getting much closer than I though I would have. I have a graphic designer working on some sketches for my new homepage. No guarantees about when I might have that, but hopefully soon. I am also considering moving this blog to another website, and just keeping the latest entries here on my site. I will have more exciting news soon, so stay tuned! Please email me if you have any comments.

Live to 2-Mix

2010-06-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

This monday night, I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I produced a six hour session in Studio A for my Creative Production Skills class. My task was to get a group of five or more together to record a song in the studio directly to a stereo track. That meant no overdubs or mixing, everything had to be just right in the moment; musically and sonically. I could write about this session forever, but I will just give the highlights.

After a leisurely two and a half hours of set up and grabbing sounds, the band started to play. I rehearsed them in the studio’s live room, then moved into the control room to sit next to my engineer. The band kept improving, and my engineer was capturing the exact sound I had pictured in my head. After five full takes, I knew things were going well, but I felt like the group needed a break. I think the thirty minute or so break was the key to the following. The group was ready to slam again, and played a great take, with just one screw up. We all took a deep breath and went at it for a seventh time. Everyone in that studio knew something special was happening in that moment. An unreal amount of energy flowed through the musicians during that take, and the engineer knew how to capture it. As the last note held out, we all lifted our arms in celebration. We knew it was the take, and we knew we were on another plane of existence.

I owe my deepest gratitude to my engineer, assistants, and of course the musicians. You can read about them and listen to the piece on my music page. I am so incredibly proud of this accomplishment. Please email me with any and all comments.

RSS Feed/Summer Semester

2010-05-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

I am still working out how to set up my rss feed. I really want to script it myself and not have to go through another site, but it might need to come to that. In theory, when I have competed this task, I will have information regarding how to subscribe to the feed. I have also just finished my first week of summer classes at Berklee. I am having a great time and will be adding some of my projects to the site, so keep your eyes out for that! Please email me with any and all comments.

My New iPad

2010-05-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that the last few days I have been playing with my brand new iPad. In fact, currently I am writing this on the application Pages that I purchased for my iPad. I am testing to see how this site looks on the iPad, and it looks pretty good. The videos will not play because they are flash, do you think I should move to QuickTime? I was surprised that the music player does not work, which is a shame because I really like the player that I have. For anyone who has read negative reviews of the iPad, don't listen to them. It is the best thing since binary. I can't put mine down. I am still working on making an rss feed, so stay tuned for that. Please email me if you have any comments.

Orchestrion

2010-05-09T22:54:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw Pat Metheny live at the Touhill in St. Louis. He was performing with his orchestrion. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life! If you don't know about the orchestrion, watch this video. He performed works from his album of the same name. He also improvised entire new pieces on the spot with his wonderful mechanical device. Pat briefly explained on stage how the large instrument worked, but I am sure I was one of the only people who actual understood what he was talking about. The three hour concert was incredibly inspiring from a compositional stand point and in the realm of music technology. Please email me if you have any comments.

Silver Rotations

2010-05-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

My latest piece is now online. I have been working on Silver Rotations since March. It has shifted instrumentation and feel many times, but I am extremely pleased with the finished product. My favorite part of the piece and the part that was the most fun to mess with (when I was not having issues with it) was the marimba fed through the delays. Please let me know what you think of the new piece if you get the chance by email.

New Site!

2010-05-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished redesigning the website, and I am very proud of it. The new site is much cleaner and makes the important information much easier to get to. The video page still loads slowly, so I am going to try to do something about that. I think I like the photo on the home page, but I am going to try to put a new one up in the next month or two. I had a really tough time turning my resume into a great looking html document, but I learned a lot by doing so. I am going to continue to tweak the site and tighten it up. If you have any comments about the new look, please email me.