Steve Espinola is a freelance audio editor, specializing in the editing of music and dialogue. See resume below.
Samples of work available on request.
Summary: Two decades experience integrating corporate audio visual media, as:
- Voice/music editor for corporate video, music, and web projects (Pro tools, Final Cut, Soundtrack Pro, Logic, Wavelab)
- Composer/pianist/performer, 30 years experience
- Multimedia integrator: sync with video, archiving, repair, media research, compatibility, problem-solving
- Flash animator (character/movement/synchronized-audio based), 11 years experience
- Broad array of support skills: Video Editing, Video Compression, Adobe Products, Writing, Quality Control
- Radio engineer/producer, 2 years commercial experience, 4 prior years volunteer radio (analog tape era)
- Popular music scholar, early 1900s-present; curator, liner notes, compilation producer. Music library searches.
- Record cutter, experimental; vintage recording media collector/repair, demonstrations (wire, 78s, Edison)
- Owner/admin of the world’s largest internet-based record cutter’s community forum (Lathetrolls.com)
Capabilities:
- Vocal & Music editor
- Facility with Pro Tools, Soundtrack Pro, Logic and Steinberg Wavelab
- Word reconstruction, vocal tone/inflection matching, level matching
- Resynchronization and remixing of separate “wild” music sources (speed/pitch matching)
- Detail-oriented cleanup of vocal/mic performances
- Razor-blade/tape-era knowledge, facility, print/saturation effects and archival skills (wire recording, new 78s, etc.)
- Facility with dead media (wire recorders, vintage record cutters, tape saturation for effect)
- Creative Foley
- Needle drop scoring: creative recomposition or “suite-ing” of unrelated compositions by matching chord/key pedal points, seamlessly, to meet required visual and verbal cues
- Musician/Composer
- Songwriter/performer/pianist, 30 years experience
- Eclectic/Encyclopedic knowledge of 110 years of popular, jazz and world musics; pastiche and library skills
- Unusual arrangements, including use of Optigan (film-disc keyboard sampler), homemade instruments, “theremin”-style shortwave radio, and unsynched homemade records played simultaneously on multiple gramophones
- Professional Radio Production Work
- Dynamic creation/production/mixing of radio ads, station IDs, themes for shows
- Live engineering of single-mic “unplugged” radio sessions
Education/Awards:
Institute for Sustainable Living, Art and Natural Design, Emerging Musician Artist Residency and Grant, 2012
NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, NYC, NY. MFA in Musical Theater Composition, 1995
Ben Hume Instrument-Making & Performance Studio, 1993-present
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. BA in English/Creative Writing, 1989
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Work Highlights:
1997-Present: Corporate Multimedia Freelance
Primary Companies/Agencies:
- TBA Productions, New York (2009-present) Client: RJ Reynolds
- MJM Creative Services, New York (2000-2010)
- Caribiner International, New York (1997-2000)
Additional companies and agencies, 1997-present:
- Alphamedia Works, Broadstreet, DevlinHair, Drury Design Dynamics, 40n47design, Jack Morton, Kaleidescope, Pam Prichett Design, Production Glue, RJO Group, Vectorhog Productions, Williams Gerard.
Work for these clients:
- American Express, Astra Zeneca, Avesta, Bayer, Bloomberg, BMW/Mini of North America, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bpeace, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), CA Technologies, Canon, Cephalon, Citibank, Eisai Pharmaceuticals/Pricara (Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals), Forest Laboratories, GE Capital, Glaxo Smith Kline, Hewlett-Packard, IBM EMEA, Lucent, Meadows Furniture, Merck, Micardis, Morgan Stanley, Motorola, Novartis, Panasonic, Pfizer, RJ Reynolds, Sanofi, Smithsonian Institute, Spiriva, Zegna.
Here are typical examples of my corporate work for these clients:
- Audio work for video productions
- Pfizer SENIOR DISTRICT MANAGER VIDEOS Over 5 years,created soundtracks for roughly 40 “This Is Your Life”-type career videos for award-winning Pfizer sales managers. Edited complex music beds, including seamless key and tempo changes, composed of popular songs selected according to theme of script and tastes of the subject. Edited narration. In a similar vein, edited 15-minute Beatles-themed farewell video “music suite” for top-ranking retiring Pfizer executive, using instrumental passages from over 20 Beatles recordings.
- Bpeace Using Soundtrack Pro, produced the re-dubbed audio for sixteen half-hour instructional roundtable discussion videos. The original shows were in English; these were dubbed, lip-synched translations for Rwanda (Swahili) and Afghanistan (Farsi), edited one line at a time. Solved ongoing time adjustment challenges. (In addition, created opening animation for all shows using Flash animation.)
- MJM Creative Services/Pfizer animation Composed music-to-order in “slightly anxious French jazz style.”
- Soundtracks for Flash Animation. Among duties while creating animations:
- Surveyed music libraries, selected potential tracks for review by project managers.
- Edited chosen tracks, synchronized to motion.
- Foley: Creation of sound FX for corporate software interfaces, using synthesized voice, bottle caps,etc
- See http://www.steveespinolaart.com/portfolio/ for 35 samples of work.
- Voice Editing, Normalizing for Web/Training: (1997-2011)
- Voice editing, level-matching, EQ, compression, music selection, animation soundtracks, sting composition. Often this is sound editing and compression for several hours of training modules. Sometimes it is audio integration into Quicktime movies.
Additional tasks:
- Quality control: Checking work for typos, formatting & programming errors. In video, checking for field flickering (term).
- Archiving, backup of projects. Maintained library for all training department projects.
- Video compression: In the phone modem era, my expertise was video codecs and low-bandwidth transmission.
2008-Present: Independent Multimedia Freelance (Selected Audio Work)
- 2011 Beach Boys “Smile” “Thank you” credit, for production/edit advising, providing research on lost masters.
- 2011 Sprinkle Genies “Looking At The Stars” Produced and engineered rock album in home studio using Logic Pro and Pro Tools. Supervised mastering. Production assistance on their 2008 album “The Class Is On Fire.”
- 2010 Rea Tajiri/Ghost Pictures “(Bridge) River is Remembering” Created soundtrack for art film using Pro Tools and Final Cut. Recorded vocal sessions, sound collage using nature-sound field recordings. Premiered Scribe Video Center, Philadelphia, June 6, 2010.
- 2007 Steve Wynn “25th Anniversary Concert” Video DVD Blended, synchronized and mixed audio from unsynchronized “wild” soundboard and camera sources, level-matched, reedited to match video edit, for 2-hour long product.
- 2005 “Fill Your Heart with Biff Rose, 1968-78” RPM Records. Compilation producer, wrote liner essay, edited archival live tracks for European CD.
- 2005 Morgan Stanley Composed, scored and produced music, to order, for Flash-based baseball piece, “in style of Queen,” using studio musicians.
- 1998 Dan Emery Mystery Band, “Love and Advertising,” Mekkatone records. Producer. Track “Other People’s Tongues” recently appeared on Adult Swim’s “Morel Orel.” Also production assistance on 2000 followup album “Natural Selection.”
Earlier Work Experience:
- 1997-1998 Sidewalk Cafe, New York, NY: Live Audio Mixer
- Sunday night live sound mixing for East Village, NYC club. Fill-in emcee for Monday night open mic.
- 1995-1997 Lanar Systems, New York, NY: Office Manager (for computer programmer headhunter agency)
- Organized employee files and resumes, collected payments, typed correspondences and resumes.
- 1991-1993 KNDD-FM, Seattle (Viacom): Production Assistant
- Top-rated “Alternative Rock”-format commercial radio station.
- Multitrack creation/production/mixing of radio ads, station IDs, “Stings”, sound FX, themes for shows.
- Razor-blade censoring to meet FCC “decency” standards; “Carting” of non-digital/vinyl-format songs for airplay.
- Engineer of “unplugged” radio sessions for Lindsay Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac), They Might Be Giants, Sarah McLachlan, Chris Isaak; additional vocal radio ID sessions for Pearl Jam, The Cramps, Fishbone, Primus, L7, visiting performers in general.
- Full-time ”Understudy” for Chief Producer during his vacations.
Composer/Performer:
- Composer of hundreds of songs, piano player, singer, maker/player of experimental instruments (electric tennis racket, etc.).
- Recipient of 2012 Emerging Musician Artist Residency/Grant at Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design.
- November 2011 concert at Bruno Walter Theater at Lincoln Center, “A songwriting community comes uptown.”
- Solo, duo & band performances since 1985. New York clubs since 1995. European mini-tour 2009.
- Toured 10 European countries and US as pianist for Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Gutterball). 50 shows in 10 weeks.
- College tours as pianist for Dan Emery Mystery Band, 1996-2000.
- Performed solo and/or as member of bands opening for The Strokes, Magnetic Fields, They Might Be Giants, Michelle Shocked, Steve Wynn, Moldy Peaches.
- Contributed songs to 6 musicals. One full length musical, “The Illuminators,” about the “Current Wars” of Tesla and Edison, was thesis at NYU’s Musical Theater Writing Program (Co-written with lyricist Bruce Monroe).
- Six self-released albums.
- Studio & live/touring musician for many bands: Moldy Peaches, Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Tammy Faye Starlite, Biff Rose, Amy X Neuburg, cub, Teenage Prayers, Dan Emery Mystery Band, Sprinkle Genies. Shows at Roseland and Hammerstein Ballrooms.
