The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast Synchro Arts NAB Show 2019 Booth Interview

Episode Date: April 10, 2019

Synchro Arts NAB Show 2019 Booth Interview

Hi, this is Foss here from thecrisfossshow.com and coming here with another booth interview. And wow, is this cool or what? We're at the Synchro Arts booth here in Las Vegas, the NAV Show 2019. Feel free to come by. They're kind of in a really cool place and they're kind of by the Starbucks Coffee. They're between North Hall and Central Hall, kind of in the area you go out to go see the buses, so be sure to check him out. And I'm here with Jeff Bloom.

Jeff, how you doing, buddy? He's the managing director of Synchro Arts Limited. And you guys got this really cool booth of Emmy Awards, and one of them is your guys'. And I guess there's a tie-in here that you guys have with the Emmys that they give you this really cool booth display. We were one of the sponsors of the event and it was an incredible privilege to get to be even positioned here with the Emmy show and we didn't expect this in fact.

It's nice you guys look really like I came by I'm like is Robert De Niro here? It is the Emmy committee's booth so yeah we we get to that's pretty cool so now your guys's company is synchro arts limited and uh tell us about who you guys are and where you guys are at and what you guys do right we primarily make software that is used in both the film industry, the broadcast industry, and the music industry. Our trick, I suppose, is that we can align one audio signal to another. That's one of the things we do that nobody else does very well. Sorry, I should say nobody else does. So in the film industry we started off in 1985 with a piece of software called Vocaline, which was our first product, and we were a plug-in with the Pro Tools system and it was used to align dialogue in the film industry. So if they shot basically a dialogue on set,

then if it's corrupted by any sound, they'd have to go back and reshoot it in a quiet studio. And that never had the emotional content of the first one. So when they re-record it it they need to lip sync it and that usually was with hand editing. So a long time ago probably in the 80s I actually worked out how this could be done and we patented an algorithm and that's what we're actually using which allows the sound editor to take the on-set dialogue, use that as a guide, and then when they record the new one to replace it,

we automatically look at the features and lip-sync it automatically to the picture. So in an instant, they've got lip-sync dialogue that sounds absolutely pristine, and they can do what they want. I've always wondered how they do that in the movies because i know sometimes they go recut scenes or sometimes they change the audio to put in a plug for a plot scene i know sometimes when i've done videos like even like interviews like this the sound has failed me for some reason and uh sometimes i've

done on a webcast for the podcast somehow somehow my sound or their sound got lowered, mine got higher, and I had to go back and redo my audio. And the hardest thing to do is that lip sync. And if you were lip syncing it, then all you do, we've actually done that for people. Wow. We've done company president interviews, and it's in a reverberant room or something. So you take the second dialogue, and you put it into our system, and it's lip synced automatically. Wow. Instantly.

I should do you guys for when I do karaoke nights or something. Ah, we do that too. In fact, okay, if you move on into the future, present rather, a number of years ago we went one stage further and we're now able to not only transfer the timing of this from one signal to another but pitch and intonation patterns and also loudness. So if you can imagine if you have a singer who's sung their part once and then they redo it or you have a backing singer who is a different voice you can take the

first voice use that as a guide for time and pitch, and then transfer those characteristics onto the second voice. So now they're aligned in time and pitch. But we also allow for a natural difference to come through, which makes it not sound automatic. It always sounds, we call it super natural and so that that's what's used both in music production for doing double tracks or harmony parts where you want tight sync it's used in rap songs it's used at very

high end of the industry but in the the film industry, they also use, not just for lip sync programs, but if they want to have the actor's intonation pattern, inflection patterns, transferred exactly so that it sounds like what he did on the set, they use our software to transfer both the pitch and time of the actor. That's pretty cool. they use our software to transfer both the pitch and time of the actor. That's pretty cool. So you guys won the Emmy for automated sound conformation. Right. That's pretty good. That's a slightly different part of our company's repertoire. The product that does that is called Titan. And

basically this helps assemble the film dialogue that was shot on the production to the picture editor's version. So they normally have to re-transfer, and this helps transfer all the little pieces, plus moves it into position so it absolutely fits to sample accurate synchronization with what was on the shoot. So it's a very specialized piece of software used in the dialogue production of the film. And that has been used on television shows like Game of Thrones, House of Cards, the Chicago CSI programs. Awesome sauce. That's awesome. There's quite a list of films it's been used on, and it's still used to this day.

And it was actually developed in 1987. So what kind of companies or who can use your software? Is it mostly large production companies? Well, anybody can use it. The fact is for the Titan software that's used generally in the high-end TV production and film film production in the dialogue recording and processing stage, post-production they call it, and our film sorry our voc line software and our revoice software is used by anybody with home studios up to the top and

music for those producers and editors with the highest talent quite quite often they can't tell you they use it because they don't want to embarrass anybody but if you know what I mean. Awesome, Sauce. So what else do we need to know about SynchroArts? Well, that's a good question. We see the future as being able to add sort of intelligence to the software more and more so it can possibly identify things that you would be looking for

and then process those according to your needs. And I'd say also finding ways to make things always sound better, natural, and do only the processing you need to do. Definitely. And that's kind of the way we approach it. And doing less sometimes is the best thing. Well, Jeff, give us an idea of where we can look this up on the website so we can check it out.

Okay. Our website is www.syncroarts.com. And syncroarts is S-Y-N-C-H-R-O-A-R-T-S.com. That answers your question. All right. Well, thanks. We certainly appreciate it. Be sure to check these guys out.

They're in a really cool high traffic spot. They're right between North Hall and Central Hall. And they're kind of in the hallway. You go out to go to the buses where the Starbucks coffee is. They got this really beautiful set here. It's really nice. And if you ever want to see like some Emmys up close, you can see four of them here on display.

And I don't know if you'll see Robert Jr. come by or anybody, you know, famous, but you can meet Jeff and hang out with him. Thanks a lot. All right. Thank you guys. Appreciate you guys. And we'll see you guys next time.

Thanks, guys.