Artist Impression: Joe Stokes on SONAR V-Studio 700

Joe Stokes specializes in Post Production Sound and Video Editing. He worked for several years in theater as a production manager, in corporate television as a producer and later as a visual effects production manager for POP on films such as Independence Day, What Dreams May Come, and Star Trek: First Contact. He is the founder of Stokes Audio, Recording & Post located in Tarzana, CA. Recently, Cakewalk's Steve Thomas visited Stokes' studio with the SONAR V-Studio 700 music production system. Joe shares some of his favorite features and a few production tips & tricks.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• cakewalk
• SONAR
• V-Studio
• 700
• Joe
• Stokes
• Audio
• Recording
• Post
• recording
• studio
• post
• production
• video
• audio
• synchronization

[ditroiamusic]

I want this! Seems like a great guy too. Nice setup.

[Albigatnz]

@willxxxlife Nah dont get the soundcard... get something from presonus... what you want is the controller!!! THis controller and the studiollive equals big time win!

[willxxxlife]

@Albigatnz  can i get the sound card by it self

[Albigatnz]

You can get the Console seperately these days... it's called the "Studio 700c" I am getting one in a month.

[ditroiamusic]

I'm hoping to grab one of these in the near future. It's not a "old school" thing (hardware). It's a workflow and tactile thing. In my opinion...not that it means much :)

[Swidhelm]

Yeah that would make life a lot easier :P One day dammit, I'll have the coin to get me a good mixer, if not the v studio 700.

Cheers for the info.

[MNSPStudio]

Four fingers per hand, 8 faders. If you bussed your instruments to 8 channels, you could control the whole mix across 8 faders. Or if your intro/outro only has 8 distinct channels, bam you can fade-in/-out once through and analog (ie., with human instead of quantized sound) rather than program automations with a mouse one at a time. But I usually only do about 4 automations at a time myself. I'll go through and do one drum automation across 4 channels then come back for instruments.

[Swidhelm]

Now see I didn't even know you could do that many automations at once. I'd kill to get the V-studio 700, but I don't have $4000 to drop on it.

Cheers

[MNSPStudio]

The issue is more about how many items can a person do at once with a mouse? You can only automate a single fader at a time with a mouse, but with a console you can, obviously, fade at least 8 channels at once. You can also mute channels with your left hand while you still use the mouse to adjust something on screen, etc. I use a BCF-2000 in my studio for transport and mix control and it has cut my production time in half. Without it I'd be doing alot of stuff one item at a time.

[Swidhelm]

I think with fading synths, effects, whatever into the background with the flick of the t-bar is easier than minimizing them all manually, and mixing would be quicker with the faders I think. I've recorded at a studio around the corner from where I live. The guy uses logic, but sometimes he routes all his faders out into his huge mitsubishi analogue console because he finds it easier and quicker to mix. But you are probably right with old school guys. Some aren't so great with computers.