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Apogee: Apogee Users: Greg Hedgepath

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Apogee Users: Greg Hedgepath
Greg Hedgepath: On the set of 2 Fast 2 Furious
with the Mini-Me

Grege Hedgepath with Apogee Mini-Me
Renowned sound editor Greg Hedgepath whose credits include Brown Sugar (2002), Serving Sara (2002), Spy Kids (2001), One Night at McCool’s (2001), Baby Boy (2001), and Whatever It Takes (2000) and Blade (1998), as well as sound design for Starship Troopers and Twister, recently wrapped as supervising sound editor on Universal Pictures’ sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) which was released on June 6th. Greg spoke to Apogee about location recording with the Mini-Me.

Known for the illegal street racing centered plot, 2 Fast 2 Furious relies heavily on the sound of the cars and their ‘souped up’ engines. So, capturing the essence of the sonic experience is critical. After initial recording attempts that produced a result which “was not sounding aggressive enough”, Greg decided that the Mini-Me would be a better option.
“I like the Mini-Me’s compression for its soft knee. It doesn’t have an extremely hard attack and makes the recording sound fatter.”

"Mini-Me brought up the mid range and lows in the engine as well as bringing out the aggressive nature [of the engine] without making it sound really squashed.”
- Greg Hedgepath-
Supervising sound editor
While on location at Auqa Dulce airport in California (and at an alternate shoot in Miami) Greg put the Mini-Me to work, powering it with a special battery and recording to a Sony M1 DAT machine via S/PDIF. “I decided to try the Mini-Me because I knew that it had high quality A/D converters and by just reading the literature I was able to tell that it had a high quality mic-pre as well,” he says.

The super-modified engines on the Japanese import cars used in the movie have special “blow off valves” that relieve the pressure built up by the turbo chargers and tail pipes that create “a lot of low end and mid-range”. Capturing this on a recording was tricky. Greg explains, “The cars put out quite a bit of SPL [sound pressure level], the turbo engines build up pressure and when they decelerate, they blow off the excess pressure through a special after market valve which produces a very loud singing sound. We also had a mic at the tail pipe, so there a lot of low end and mid-range coming out of it. Because of this, I knew I needed a good quality pre-amp.”

Another feature that was appealing to Greg was ‘PushIt’, Mini-Me’s unique new three-curve stereo compressor/limiter. “I like the Mini-Me’s compression for it’s soft knee. It doesn’t have an extremely hard attack and makes the recording sound fatter.”

Over all Greg felt that “Mini-Me brought up the mid range and lows in the engine as well as bringing out the aggressive nature [of the engine] without making it sound really squashed. Recording with the Mini-Me saved the day for us.”

Greg Hedgepath is currently working as the supervising sound editor on Out of Time, starring Denzel Washington and to be released sometime in 2003.

The Mini-Me-recorded motor now appears in 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003).

CHECK OUT 2 Fast 2 Furious ON LINE: http://www.thefastandthefurious.com
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