Meeting Topic: Technical Tour: Earshot Audiopost
Speaker Name: Brice Bowman and Rick Such, owners, with Ben Ericsen and Haley Morkert, engineers
Other business or activities at the meeting: Membership advantages and upcoming meetings were announced briefly
Meeting Location: Earshot Audiopost, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Summary
The tour of Earshot Audiopost began with an overview of the company’s history from co-owners Brice Bowman and Rick Such, discussing how they met and joined forces to open the original Earshot in a previous location. After years of successful operation, a building sale forced the company to search for a new location; the ideal spot was found in the form of a former Boys & Girls club building with a half-court gymnasium, a quiet location, and sturdy block construction. The build out of the studio was completed with the owners serving as general contractors and supervisors to meet both time and budget demands while ensuring high-caliber workmanship. With the owners careful oversight and nights working on the build while maintaining operations in the previous location, the present facility opened with only one day of downtime.
Earshot Audipost features three control rooms. Each control room is configured with a similar Pro Tools HDX system and monitors, and with closely matching acoustics despite slightly different sizes. This allows for flexibility in use between engineers and control rooms when the need arises and helps to ensure consistent results across the facility. The only substantive departure from this theme is the addition of surround capability in one control room. The tracking spaces, however, offer variations in size and acoustic. A smaller booth, comfortable for one or two artists, a medium size and slightly more live booth, and a larger space that could host foley, a larger cast, or musical artists allow for a range of project. All three spaces are interconnected with all control rooms via central patch, where audio, closed-circuit video, and timer information can be routed.
Earshot’s clientele ranges from commercials to network broadcasts, and independent films to ADR for motion pictures and video games. While unattended sessions were becoming the normal pre-pandemic, the vast majority of clients now attend and work remotely. Similarly, bespoke Pro Tools templates were created to facilitate the recent removal of consoles and streamline the regular use of Source Connect to leverage remote talent. This has proved a winning formula for Earshot Audiopost as they celebrate more than 20 years of success.
Written By: Brett Leonard
Indiana Section - Audio Engineering Society 