Matt Nielson, Sound Designer - July 28, 2010

[Jacob Coakley]

Matt Nielson is a Washington, D.C.-based sound designer. Along with his role as the resident sound designer at the Round House Theatre in D.C., he has worked for such theatres as the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Olney Theatre Center as well as the New York Shakespeare Festival. He’s won four Helen Hayes awards for his sound design work, including for his work in 2009 on the Catalyst Theatre Company’s production of 1984.

This week in the TheatreFace.com chat we’ll talk to him about how he’s fashioned his design career, and he’ll walk us through his design process for 1984, with a close look at his track “Two Minute Hate” for that show. I've uploaded that track to the music player on the main page of the site, and am looking for a way to attach it to this post as well.

Here’s the questions I’ll ask him:

1 – Where’d you get your training as a sound designer? What was your first big break?
2 – Could you walk us through the process for “Two Minute Hate.” Everything from how you developed a language with the director to talk about what you’d do, to composing the sounds, to recording and mixing the actor.
3 – Any career advice for sound designers? How do you help yourself keep working?

[Jacob Coakley]

Transcript! Here's the transcript from the chat interview. Thanks everyone for participating!

JACOB COAKLEY: Alright - let's get going! Matt, why don't you start by giving us a quick bio -- and maybe telling us how you got into theatre, adn sound design?

JACOB COAKLEY: (and as you can tell, typos are perfectly acceptable. :-) )

MATTHEW NIELSON: Well in high school I was the musical theatre geek a la "Glee" (Just without all the autotune). Kept that going through college. Then in the real world I started working run crew at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD. One ay they offered me a

MATTHEW NIELSON: sound op position, and I never looked back.

JACOB COAKLEY: Did you get any sort of formal training in sound design while you were in college?

MATTHEW NIELSON: I ran sound and audio mastered at theatres for years and then in 2004 just decided to make the leap to design and freelance. /e

MATTHEW NIELSON: Not even a little :-)

JACOB COAKLEY: Self-taught, eh?

JACOB COAKLEY: How did you teach yourself? Any books or exercises you can share with us?

MATTHEW NIELSON: All my sound design training I got from carefully watching and listen to designers who came though the theatres where I was audo master

MATTHEW NIELSON: So, not really self taught at all. Just taught by some of my favorite designers. I was taught by example and mentoring

JACOB COAKLEY: OK, one more before we get into the 2 Minute Hate –

JACOB COAKLEY: What, exactly is an audio master -- I don't know that I've heard that term before.

MATTHEW NIELSON: I read lots of books about engineering when I was getting into audio mastering, but as far as exercises go I would just say to pick a desinger you admire and ask to assist him/her

MATTHEW NIELSON: Like a Master Electrician, but with audio. Some theatres call them sound heads. Same thing

JACOB COAKLEY: Got it.

JACOB COAKLEY: lied -- one more before 2 minute hate.

MATTHEW NIELSON: haha

JACOB COAKLEY: Mentoring is a big deal -- and you mention going to designers and asking to assist them.

JACOB COAKLEY: Is there a proper way to do that? How can someone approach a designer and ask for that in a respectful way?

MATTHEW NIELSON: Yeah well it's veeeeerry tricky. In fact for years I would refuse to take on any assistants because I would think "how does anyone else know my process? How could I possibly teach someone else to create sounds and music like I would?"

MATTHEW NIELSON: But there is one young designer who was VERY persistant with me, saw many of my shows, knew alot that I had done, and finally I found myself overbooked a while back and rally had no choice but to bring somebody else along.

MATTHEW NIELSON: and I've used her on many shows since then and sh'es been phenomenal. I was really lucky in that I sort of got mentored by default. Just being the engineer at theatres where my favorite designers were frequenting

MATTHEW NIELSON: So I guess my advice would be to be persistantand patient, and show whoever it is that you're trying to work with that you know what you're doing and are ready to learn. Study up on that person's styles and techniques.

MATTHEW NIELSON: without stalking :-)

MATTHEW NIELSON: /e

JACOB COAKLEY: Ohhhhh! That's what Iv'e been doing wrong! WITHOUT stalking! :-)

MATTHEW NIELSON: it's a fine line

JACOB COAKLEY: OK - 2 minute hate! Can you walk us through your process?

MATTHEW NIELSON: Sure!

MATTHEW NIELSON: It was really kind of amazing.

MATTHEW NIELSON: I had never worked with James Konicek before but he's got this James Earl Jones meets the guy who used to do movie trailes type voice.

JACOB COAKLEY: "In a world..."

MATTHEW NIELSON: exactly!

MATTHEW NIELSON: so the director and I had met a few times to talk about the general feel of the show and James and I met to do some mock-up recordings for them to use in rehearsal.

MATTHEW NIELSON: The biggest influence for me on this show was the projections designer

MATTHEW NIELSON: I really wasn't sure what I was going to do for music until he showed me this HIGHLY disturbing thing he created for the opening nightmare sequence

MATTHEW NIELSON: It all just fell into place after that. Between James' creepy big brother voice and the video, I just started coming up with this paranoid music for the show.

MATTHEW NIELSON: While this is playing, the enitre cast was standing with their backs to the audience staring up at the back wall as the text to the Two Minutes Hate scrolls up,mixed with flashes of war and death

MATTHEW NIELSON: /e

JACOB COAKLEY: wow.

JACOB COAKLEY: that sounds intense.

JACOB COAKLEY: One of the things I really love about that cue is the build in the rhythm. The buzzer is jarring, but combined with the always escalating rhythm of the music and the vocal line -- my heart was racing.

JACOB COAKLEY: Before I open it up, can we talk tools for a second? What do you compose on? What software do you use to record the talent? To mix? And what sort of files do you deliver to the theatre?

MATTHEW NIELSON: Hah. Thanks. Somewhere along the line I think I picked up being pretty good at creepy, and this show just helped bring that out.

MATTHEW NIELSON: Sure!

MATTHEW NIELSON: I've got a big old tank of a custom laptop that was built by a company called Sager for gamers. I use Cakewalk Sonar for all of my editing, recording and composition. That's one of the things I love about it, is that it does everything I need it to

MATTHEW NIELSON: for audio. I'm also kind of a plugin and soft synth freak. Alot of the sounds in two minutes hate comes from Spectasonic's Omnisphere and Native Instrument's Kontakt and Absynth

MATTHEW NIELSON: I recorded him on an AKG 414 through a MOTU 828 mkII

MATTHEW NIELSON: (microphone and audio interface)

MATTHEW NIELSON: (microphone and audio interface)

MATTHEW NIELSON: I deliver wave files to theatres. Whether they run QLab or SFX, it's always wav files. Except for rehearsal tracks. Those are always mp3's.

MATTHEW NIELSON: /e

JACOB COAKLEY: thank you!

JACOB COAKLEY: OK - I went a little over on my time, but Matt sure gave us a lot to think about.

JACOB COAKLEY: Who wants to start off with a question for him?

JACOB COAKLEY: Anyone have any obstacles to sound they're encountering now and could use a bit of advice?

JACOB COAKLEY: Alight -- I'll jupm in with one.

JACOB COAKLEY: Someone was chatting yesterday and was worried about dousing a head mic with water.

CANDYCE ISEMIGER: yea

MATTHEW NIELSON: ouch

JACOB COAKLEY: what steps should you take as a sound guy to protec the mic?

CANDYCE ISEMIGER: Glass of water to the face... we have either an E6 or B3 for elements

MATTHEW NIELSON: Wellll that's tough.

MATTHEW NIELSON: First I would say to switch to DPA mics. When I worked at Shakespeare in the Park in NY, I found that they did best with people like John Godman who sweat constantly, and rain and such. He;'s go through countrymen every other day but the DPA's

MATTHEW NIELSON: were more resistant.

MATTHEW NIELSON: Then it's just a matter of blowing them out with canned air the second they come off stage.

CANDYCE ISEMIGER: Problem.... community theatre on tight budget... and final techs are this weekend

JACOB COAKLEY: D'oh!

MATTHEW NIELSON: Yeah okay. Unfortunately that's where you hav to tell your production manager that if that actor needs to wear a mic, and take a glass of water to the face, there are a couple of tricks you can do t help, but that mic then becomes a perishable.

JACOB COAKLEY: Anyone else?

MATTHEW NIELSON: Where are you placing the mic? Is it possible to move the mic to an "above the ear" location and take the glass to the other side of the face?

JACOB COAKLEY: whooops...

CANDYCE ISEMIGER: yea thats what we were thinking... or the B3 center hairline and water to chest/neck

MATTHEW NIELSON: Little things like that will go a long way

CANDYCE ISEMIGER: alright.l.... thanks

KEITH FULLER: Can you use well-placed condensor mikes on stage and bypass face-mikes?

CANDYCE ISEMIGER: no

JACOB COAKLEY: lright - I think we're open for a new question now...

JACOB COAKLEY: One last one before we run out of time?

JACOB COAKLEY: OK - Matt, one fun one before you go then.

JACOB COAKLEY: What's been your worst nightmare of a show as a sound guy?

JOHN SHRYCK: if there's time, i've got a question - how do you deal with directors asking for rewrites on original music? do you give them a set number of re-writes, or do you factor the possibility of re-writes into your rate?

MATTHEW NIELSON: Oooooh tough one. Round House has a second stage that is a black box that they rent out to smaller theatre companies. One theatre decided to do Evita in an Alley formation with audiene on oppoesing sides and th band split between the other sides.

MATTHEW NIELSON: VERY difficult

JACOB COAKLEY: holy smokes.

MATTHEW NIELSON: Also a tough question.

MATTHEW NIELSON: It's a little tricky for designers who compose becuase very few theatres will pay a seperate rate for composing, or they will just hire someone else to do that.

JACOB COAKLEY: Alright! Matt, thanks for you time!

MATTHEW NIELSON: So I factor in the possibility of composition in to my rate and just know that there will ALWAYS be rewrites

MATTHEW NIELSON: Thanks for having me!

JOHN SHRYCK: thank you, Matt!

JACOB COAKLEY: IS there any way people can contact you if they have further questions?

JACOB COAKLEY: (As long as they don't stalk you?) :-)

MATTHEW NIELSON: [e-mail] and http://www/somerandomsound.com

JACOB COAKLEY: Excellent.

JACOB COAKLEY: Thank you, Matt for your time and wisdom!

JACOB COAKLEY: Everyone - in case you missed something, I'll have the transcript posted soon, adn thanks for hanging out!

MATTHEW NIELSON: My pleasure. Thanks again for having me.