Andy Waterman- president and creative director of Umbrella Media, Chatsworth
"First of all our major client is the world largest educational music publishing company, Hal Leonard Corporation, and we produce audio and video content for several of their product lines. Ultimately, production of this work has put us into close contact with some of the best studio musicians, singers and voice actors in LA . This has led Umbrella Studio to be involved in recording, mixing and mastering acoustic music and jazz projects for musical artists from literally all over the world.
Secondly, we've developed an interesting foot print in producing DVDs and webinized videos for leaders in the music education and music business area. These projects have built for us some expertise in using green screen and virtual sets as well as the "dark magic" of keying and lighting for these situations. We have our entire video production rig -including a portable ProTools system used for recording new audio elements to musical playback- in portable cases small enough to fit into the back of a station wagon.
Every year in April, Hal Leonard sends a massive, multi CD package to over 35,000 school music specialist in the USA. Thus from December through March we will record over 120 songs plus an original 30 minute Broadway style Children's Musical for Hal Leonard's vocal music education department. These typically include rhythm section, multiple keyboards, horn section, solo instruments including strings, SATB vocal groups, and our own kids vocal ensemble "The Young Vocal Artists of Los Angeles"
Recently, with the help of Brad Leiberman and RSPE we added to our mic collection and our outboard gear. Most notably was our acquisition of the Bricasti reverb. This unit really helps us deliver truly believable acoustic spaces. Of course all our reverb generators can sound amazing on large spaces. But the Bricasti has the processing power to do smaller spaces with startling sense of dimension. We also purchased, with RSPE's assistance, mics from Lauten, the amazing Mojave tube condenser mic , the unflappable Shure SM7 which is invaluable to use while recording rock vocals or Broadway divas that often fold many high end mics. Additionally we enhanced our video productions by adding the ultra mini Tram lavalier mics and mic clips to our selection, which are virtually invisible to the camera but sound spectacular.
Finally, Brad and RSPE have made every upgrade to our ProTools systems a smooth and flawless process. Today, almost every encounter with incompetent music store sales personal reaffirms the need to collaborate with PROFESSIONALS. Downtime and bad advice has no place in the profession environment at RSPE. The consulting aspect of RSPE maybe their number one asset to a pro studio company. As far as Umbrella Media is concerned, there is no reason to look anywhere else.
