US sound designer Bill Chesley continues his work on commercials – for the likes of Walmart, Fedex, Nike and Guinness – for sound design collective Henryboy from a new studio space at his home. He had decided to organise things ahead of New York State’s stay-at-home order directive, choosing an Audient Evo 4 as his audio interface.
‘I’m in pretty close proximity to my actual studio, but thought I’d get a home set-up going in these unpredictable times,’ he explains.
‘I’m using Pro Tools Ultimate on a MacBook Pro with loads of plug-ins and running everything through Evo 4 to a pair of Genelec monitors. My go-to mics are a Neuman shotgun, an Audio-Technica 4025 and an AKG 414. I also use Sony handhelds quite often, and contact and EMF mics from LOM when I feel the need. I spend a lot of time recording my own sounds. I like a library, but you don’t always get the desired effect.
He co-runs the award-winning Henryboy with wife Kate Gibson where he uses an Audient iD22 audio interface. When considering a studio in their Brooklyn apartment, he was mindful of how much space he had to play with. ‘I gravitated towards Evo 4 because of its small footprint – it packs a lot of punch in a small space,’ he says.
Which is exactly what he has to do now, with multi-million dollar clients expecting on him to continue to meet deadlines: ‘I’ve always enjoyed the mic preamps in the iD22, and what I’ve recorded with the Evo 4 so far is sounding great. Finding a monitor/preamp box like this for around US$130 is kind of amazing really. It means I can get on with things without having to compromise on quality.’
Quality is important to Chesley, who’s spent the best part of three decades working in sound design, including longform documentaries. His latest credit was for this year’s HBO crime documentary, Crazy, Not Insane, directed by Alex Gibney. ‘Creating the sound design for flashback sequences of actual serial killers describing what they experienced mentally while committing murders was very strange indeed.’
Although New York is presently on Pause (Policies Assure Uniform Safety for Everyone), it’s business as usual for Chesley and Henryboy: ‘I’ve been fairly portable throughout my career, so this isn’t completely alien to me. I enjoy working from home. I sit next to the garden door, which is great, and I get to hang with my 11 year old daughter.’
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