Manhattan-based audio post production facility Parabolic is using Emmy Award-winning Cleanfeed to re-record high quality audio, in real time, from anyone and from anywhere in the world.
In recent months, Cleanfeed has been used on a variety of high profile film and television projects including The Other Two for HBO; Emily in Paris, You Hurt My Feelings, Shotgun Wedding, Russian Doll and In The Heights, to name a few.
Headed by sound editor/re-recording mixer Lew Goldstein, Parabolic was established in 2011 as a full service audio post-production facility.
With two Dolby certified mix rooms, an ADR stage, Foley pits and suites for sound editing, it attracts work from some of the biggest names in film and television.
Cleanfeed was introduced into Parabolic’s studios during the COVID pandemic when a live audio recording solution was needed during lockdown.
Lew explains: “I figured if we could find out a good way of working remotely with clients easily, they would continue the project, especially the recording, so I spent some weeks doing a tremendous amount of experimenting with many different remote audio software, and failing to find anything that was easy to use and technically advanced enough before realizing that the best one for us was Cleanfeed.”
Built from the ground up for live radio and audio production, Cleanfeed delivers broadcast quality sound without delays, dropouts or interference.
In addition, it is straightforward to install, easy to use and quickly sharable via a web browser.
For Parabolic it was perfect, especially for loop group recordings that normally involve a number of actors being present in the studio at the same time – something COVID made impossible.
“We tried lots of things, but until we came across Cleanfeed we couldn’t find a way of extending this out to more than one person,” Lew says.
“Cleanfeed offered us a viable solution because it got round the issues we were having with delays and how to get the audio into our Pro Tools recording system. A lot of the software we experimented with tried to be all-in-one solutions, which we didn’t want.
“We needed a collaborative solution that delivered the high quality audio a professional facility such as ours needs. Cleanfeed made that possible.”
Lew adds that being able to access Cleanfeed via a web browser made it easy for the actors to connect to the studio.
In addition, Parabolic has devised ways of using multiple Cleanfeed sessions, running simultaneously, so that it can separate actors from observers such as the producers, directors during the recording, thus preventing observers from talking over an actor’s lines.
“By using two Cleanfeed sessions simultaneously, we are able to keep the talent and observers completely separate on the same session,” Lew says.
“We can record the actors’ lines cleanly, yet still have the observers contributing to the process. Cleanfeed’s accessibility, and the fact that it is such a straightforward software to use, makes this entirely possible.
“If you need another session, you just open another Cleanfeed.”
Lew adds that since adopting Cleanfeed, Parabolic has used it to record over 2,800 hours of audio.
“By becoming fluent in how to use Cleanfeed for remote recording we have developed new workflows that are incredibly valuable because they are so fast, reliable and straightforward,” he says.
“We are still finding new ways of integrating Cleanfeed into our workflows and processes, and that is very exciting as it helps us deliver added benefits to our clients.”