Listen up: Vagabond Audio’s sound design commands attention

03/13/2007

Repost of an article in Screen Magazine

By Amy Wilschke

Tucked cozily into the artistic haven of a River East building complex is Vagabond Audio, a space that, upon entering, is not unlike walking into your own home. In fact, for a moment I was halfway convinced that I had entered the home of co-owners Drew Weir and Risé Sanders – that’s how homey it is!

Weir and Sanders have been working together as Vagabond Audio for about three years. Head Engineer and Sound Designer Weir hails from such illustrious companies as Red Car (Chicago) and Chiat/Day in New York. He was working at Nu World Editorial (Chicago) when Sanders, then a supervising producer at Towers Productions, was charged with the task of finding an additional source for audio mixing.

“[Towers] assigned me to go mix with him without really asking me or anything,” Sanders, Vagabond’s producer, recalls and laughs. “I was kind of like, ‘This guy better be good.’ I had a little bit of an attitude, but he very much impressed me. That’s how we met.”

Weir adds, “After Nu World closed I started working at Red Car. I worked at Red Car for three years and during the end of that time, we decided to pursue opening up [Vagabond].” He notes that he’s always toyed with the idea of having his own studio someday.

Vagabond specializes in sound for TV commercials, with services running the gamut of voiceover, ADR, Foley work and sound effects recording. Weir has 10 years experience as a sound designer and has completed work for a long list of clients including McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch and United Airlines. Emmy-nominated Sanders also has 10 years of experience as a documentary producer for A&E, The History Channel and MSNBC, among others.

Although Vagabond is primarily an audio post house, Weir himself is a musician and says his work is heavily influenced by his musical background. “As a sound designer, music is involved all the way through the process,” he says. “It’s in the back of my head the whole time I’m doing it. I think about a symphony when I’m doing it. I think about the elements of the sound design coming together and being the elements of the different sections of an orchestra.”

Weir explains that the four main components of music - melody, harmony, rhythm and color - are all contained within sound design as well, but that the components must be considered differently than they are when composing.

“You have to pull yourself back from it and think of melody and harmony in a different way,” he says. “It’s not necessarily tonal. There’s color and texture and counterpoint...but it’s not a note. It’s not a C-sharp that is part of a chord.”

Along these lines, Sanders and Weir agree that there really isn’t a line that divides the concept of sound design from music. “It’s a continuum,” Sanders says. “There’s not a bright, fine line - this is sound design, that’s music composition. A sound designer wants to go a little bit further onto the side of that nonexistent line into what is music, and the music composer wants to go a little bit onto the other side of the line. Somewhere in the middle there’s a transitionary area.”

Weir agrees. “I think sound design is asked to coexist with music quite a bit and it’s very possible for those two things to come together and fight each other,” he says. Weir says this often happens during the final mix when he is asked to create sound design for a piece of music that was created by someone else at another company.

This is where the line between music and sound design is really tested. Weir says many of the sound design projects he’s asked to complete turn into musical composition just by way of following directions from the client.

“I think you would draw the line when melodic elements really become the feature of the piece,” he says. “Those melodic elements might not be anything on their own. They might be kind of dull and boring, but there’s a big sound design behind them that is just looking for something else to connect it.”

As impending changes in the industry begin to take effect over the next several months and years, there are several things audio companies must be aware of in order to acclimate. One of the major changes is advancement in technology and the new media avenues through which advertising companies are sending their messages.

“Our responsibility toward our client,” says Sanders, “is to stay abreast of technological changes and to be a resource for clients so they know that if they need a certain piece to go into the web or cell phone or whatever, that we know how to do that for them.”

Weir adds that keeping on top of these new mediums is forcing sound designers to use their design elements in different ways than they’re used to. “I can try and create something that’s going to sound great [in the studio] but isn’t ever going to work on somebody’s cell phone,” he says. “It’s too low of a bit rate. It doesn’t have any harmonic content or impact. [Clients] want something that’s really going to make your chest thump. Well, you’re playing it on a cell phone.”