I'm not sure what Katy was using but for me in those days it was a Sennheiser 416. For stereo back then it was a Shoeps CMXY. But I can tell by that zeppelin it had to be the 416.

Sorry I didn't cover using it as a playback device. That's not something I've used this unit for. This video was originally for people I was hiring to record things for me. I'd send them the recorder, they'd record things and send me back the recorder. This was just an easy way to send them instructions and not have to repeat myself every time. :) I'm still bummed these are no longer in production. They were great little workhorses. As long as the material isn't too transient or punchy, the auto-level works really well. Best of luck with your history interview!

@@DavidFarmerSoundi'm glad to see you're still monitoring the video. it was one of the few sources of information for this device. i had been able to find a NIB one & have been loving it in conjunction with Clippy omni mics. having also used to Sony PCM-A10, which is most people's suggestion these days for "handheld," i've preferred the M10 for both the lower noise preamps & also the button interface - it's a small thing, but the hardware gain knob, volume rocker, additional physical buttons on the front, & especially the battery life has me preferring this one everytime. thank you for your effort on this, even if it was found by many more people than you originally intended!

@@dogwalk3 Love to hear this! Yes this video reached far more people than it was ever intended for. :). It was essentially an instruction for a handful of people I was hiring to do some recordings for me. :D. I wish they were still being made. The battery life, low handling and wind noise, all made it a favorite of mine despite the onboard mics having a relatively narrow stereo image.

Back in 2000 I have to say our options for plugins were much smaller than what we have today, so the plugin chains were much less complicated. Sauron's voice would've had Waves Rbass, McDSP Analog channel, Soundtoys Pitchblender, and AVID (Digidesign back then) Reverb One. I might be forgetting something but that's most of it. I still miss Pitchblender and sad that it seems gone for good. But no outboard gear for Sauron's voice, at least at the design stage. The mix might've done a little more to it for spatiality like add some of their own verbs for surround. As for a 3 hour project yes it gets split into "Reels" which are roughly 20 minute sections.

@@DavidFarmerSound SoundToys plugins already were used back then? Wow! Didn't know that they existed for so long... Basically, was Alan Howard, like, whisper-growling into the mic and then you apply the whole FX chain afterwards, with main ingredient still being his voice, not the audio FX doing most of the job?

@@nickcollins9893 Yes the FX were applied to raw recorded dialog. His performance was great as it was, and the characteristics & timbre worked nicely without me having to be too heavy-handed.

​@@DavidFarmerSound Well, the results speak for themselves - Voice of Sauron (every aspect that went into making it what it is) turned out to be horrifying for me as a kid! Sorry for gigantic pile of questions, but I had them in my mind for almost 20 years... so maybe you could explain this as well? In the Fellowship of the Ring, the heartbeat sound is slow, subtle drone, sprinkled with a few Sauron whispers/speech here and there. In the Two Towers, Sauron speech is barely used - only his elongated breath sounds and growl of the Eye, while female whispers got introduced (I'm very curious, which dark ambient musicians were responsible for that part, according to extras). And in the Return of the King, there's wonderful and creepy mixture of both Sauron's voice and female whispers, with much more upfront heartbeat sound, reminded me of very low tuned timpani in the Orodruin scene... Essentially, what I was trying to ask is how those sounds were created and did this difference in them occurred because you accompanied changes in Eye's appearance throughout the trilogy, for example? And again, double sorry for me overwhelming you with all these questions - I'm just surprised there is so little information about this marvelous piece from LOTR sound design, meanwhile almost every monster and every battle got more or less of an explanation on the commentary track... I guess there is just too much to explain. I was equally surprised when I stumbled upon your YT channel!

@@nickcollins9893 The musical aspect of the ring moments were created by the lovely folks at www.plan9.co.nz/. As for the how's and the why's over the trilogy, I can't recall the specific direction at the moment. These types of things tend to evolve naturally as we don't want to just repeat ourselves, but keep things moving fresh and forward. We'd take the established base and add whatever we thought the picture and the story needed.

Yep I affectionately call that the "little big knob" and I use it all the time. But I also use Pro Tools and Soundminer where that doesn't exist.

To my knowledge dumping the repeaks does no harm. Occasionally I empty the entire repeaks folder. Reaper will just rebuild them as needed. And also AFAIK they don't delete when an item is removed in Reaper. But TBH I'm not 100% about that. I just do this so they're not in the way.

@@DavidFarmerSound Thanks for the fast answer :)

They're just cache files really of the waveforms, to speed up drawing once the waveform is calculated. They can be deleted at will but Reaper will re-create them when it calculates the waveform.

Yes it's very much my DAW of choice for design. When editing to picture and collaborating with a crew though, its very much still a Pro Tools world amongst all the people and studios I work with, A handful of game companies that hire me out for design accept Reaper projects for the final delivery. But for creating new sounds as .WAV for a show library, yes it's Reaper all day long for me.

@@DavidFarmerSound i want to leave Pro Tools ( Specially aftery they Suckered me into a Subscription Plan, they deceitfully took my perpetual license that was uptodate )

If your computer sees the interface as a valid IO device, then Reaper should be able to use it.

@@DavidFarmerSound it's a shame Reaper did not continue this functionality, I still use the Mk3 it's the best and cheapest multi-track recording devices I have found for my home studio (no jokes) I have found that this particular function no longer exists. it now wants me to pick my Moto to return 1-2 or analog 1-2 etc, in that device properties window effectively turning my Motu into a 2-channel audio input device. So I can no longer access my other 6 stereo ports. as i result i am once again back to the mac and logic X. since repear is the only other affordable option