Remote Recording – Interview with David W. Hewitt
The Academy Awards, the Rolling Stones, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Madonna are just some of the famous names on his list of references; many of the world’s best known producers and engineers swear by his sound. His tour career goes back 25 years. 7-time TEC Award winning David W. Hewitt from Remote Recording is a legend in live recording. We had the chance to talk to him about his career and why he relies on Nuendo in his day to day production work.
Hello David! Could you give us a short introduction of your background and the story of Remote Recording?
I grew up in the Military, the son of an Air Force pilot. Touring was away of life and after a stint in the military and a few years in the Racing field, a guitar obsession led to engineering for friends.
A job offer from Bob Lifton’s Regent Sound branch in Philadelphia in 1970 started my studio career. When Record Plant, New York, had procured its first remote truck in 1971, a long relationship began. By 1973 I was working full time running the Remote operation, the 70s were prime time for live Rock n’ Roll albums.
Remote Recording Services was formed in 1979 as my consulting and then Digital rental facility. A disastrous accident destroyed the “Black Truck”, our previous recording facility, the winter of 1989. The next year, the “Silver Truck” was designed and constructed. The Silver Studio has remained one of the premier remote audio facilities in the world.
Today, Remote Recording has built a new all-digital remote truck to complement the classic analog truck. Both trucks are equipped with AMD Dual Opteron PCs running Nuendo via Apogee converters.
You’ve even recorded the academy awards 2008. Was that particularly special for you?
The Academy Awards are a special favourite of mine. It is the class act of all the award shows, and I have worked on most of them. The entire production staffs are consummate professionals and great personalities. We have the best job in the Show, which is the live mix for the orchestra to air and sub mixes to the house PA. Veteran film score engineer Tommy Vicari and I mix the orchestra and send it to the video truck.
Which role plays Nuendo in your daily production process?
We consider Nuendo our primary recording system. Each remote truck has the capability to run two complete systems. We usually run the Nuendo for any rehearsals and do playbacks before the Show to check the quality of the Tracks and Mixes.
Which features are the most interesting to you?
In Live Recording the first issue is reliability. Nuendo has proven to be rock solid on our AMD Dual Opteron PCs. The second issue is sound quality. Nuendo is definitely the best sounding system I have heard. A-B tests prove it and many of our top clients insist on it.
What projects have you got lined up for the future? Is Nuendo going to be used in future projects?
Next week we continue with the New York Metropolitan Opera series of live HD and Dolby Surround uplinks to 600 theaters worldwide. We will record all of the shows on Nuendo.