DIGITAL RECORDING NOT B.S. FOR PENN & TELLER

—Composer Gary Stockdale Mixes the Old and New to Score for Magical Duo—

BUENA PARK, CA (November 21, 2003)—A TV show called Bulls--t! conjures up any number of images, but for the team of Penn & Teller, it's simply a fun forum to expose things that are precisely that. For EMMY Award-nominated composer Gary Stockdale, it's an exercise in every musical genre "from Mozart to 60's porno music" that calls for a large number of cues, changes in mix configurations, and a combination of new and vintage gear.

In the studio, where the "anti-magic" happens. "Going to hard drive video and adding the Yamaha 02R96 has simplified the recording setup immensely," notes Stockdale.

"Penn & Teller never go for the easy trick," explains Stockdale, who has been associated with the duo for more than 15 years. "For this show, most of the scoring is done in postproduction. Since it's documentary format, they'll shoot a bunch of footage and edit it down, and then I'll write the type of music that best helps get the message across. As the composer, I'm simply adding an extra level of editorializing to the show."

Now in its second season on the Showtime network, Penn & Teller: Bulls-t! is an entertaining journey in debunking various bizarre topics.

"It's really a 'comedy reality show,'" explains Stockdale, "as opposed to other reality shows which inadvertently wind up being comedies, but contain very little that's real. Penn & Teller poke fun at things which are, quite frankly, B.S.—TV psychics, 'alternative medicine' quacks, alien abductions, whether bottled water is any better than tap water—you name it, they expose it, and use a lighthearted touch while doing so.

"For example, they recently did a show on Feung Shui, which has been termed the 'art of creating a sacred space,' by hiring three different practitioners to come in and tell us exactly how we should arrange furniture in a new house," he says. "None knew that the others had also been hired, and in the end, the 'science' of Feung Shui magically yielded three totally different results. For that episode, I wrote some Stephane Grappelli-type violin music as underscore while they were changing around the furniture and getting opinions. We keep each show humorous and yet still make it clear that these people are touting a lot of nonsense."

Since meeting the duo in 1989, Stockdale has written and performed original music for their NBC TV special, Don't Try This At Home, the Broadway show Penn & Teller Rot In Hell, the ABC prime-time special Home Invasions, their current exclusive engagement at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas and the acclaimed television variety series Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular, which earned Stockdale his first two Emmy nominations for his work as composer, music director and bandleader. Although his composition tools include a number of vintage keyboards and effects, he has successfully made the transition to computer-based recording and scoring, with some recent acquisitions that include a Yamaha 02R96 digital mixing console and a hard disk recording system.

"Though the object of our show is to point out scams wherever they exist, there's no B.S. with the 02R96," Stockdale says. "It's an great tool. Going to hard drive video and adding the 02R96 has really simplified things. The weak link in my digital audio chain was working with an analog mixer, as well as locking up a VTR with my sequencer by SMPTE. My engineer, Bob Kearney, would say, 'Get hard drive video! Are you crazy?' We both agreed that the old mixer wasn't giving us enough 'punch.' Bob had been working around L.A. on digital boards, specifically 02Rs, where you could save mixes, so he was a big influence in my getting the 02R96. There's something to be said for analog, but it all gets heard in digital eventually, especially with TV production. I really like the fact that with the 02R96, you can instantly save any setup that you're working on and download or upload it; that's especially helpful for someone like me when I'm doing a lot of different cues. We're using our Apogee Rosetta AD/DA converters less now that we have the 02R96, and we're also using the console's onboard effects. We're running everything off Word Clock from the Rosettas and everything seems to be working perfectly; there were no synch problems when the board was installed. I started using it right away.

"The MOTU Audio System/Digital Performer combo is my main hard disk recording system, and there are a number of different digital sources like SPDIF and AES going right into the 02R96—almost all the connections are lightpipe, and it handles everything smoothly. The sonic quality has definitely increased. Everything seems bigger and crisper sounding."

Stockdale's facility in Los Angeles includes a live room and an electronics room housing two TASCAM Gigastudios which are plugged directly into the 02R96, plus various Macintosh G Series computers ("CPU's everywhere," he says), Genelec 1029A nearfield monitors and a 1091A subwoofer.

"Besides all the different plug-ins I have," he notes, "I also use a lot of more 'vintage' gear. Since we're using a Gigastudio and plug-ins, we've been able to sell off lot of chip-based synths, since everything is being duplicated so well on the computers these days. Most of my keyboard modules are now in the Mac, but I have (and still use) an 88-key Fender Rhodes.

Stockdale became a student of legends Henry Mancini and Lalo Schifrin shortly after college, which led to collaborations on the soundtracks of feature films like Sudden Impact, Dr. Detroit and FX2. His later credits include the theme and score for Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Team Knight Rider and the theme for the latest version of the game show To Tell the Truth. As a singer, one of his favorite credits is an appearance in the cult-classic, Cop/Rock. His current work includes the second season of Bulls-t!, as well as scoring the directorial debut of actor Hank Azaria and three shows for the CMT network.

"Even though Penn & Teller are called 'magicians,' the truth is they were drawn together by their mutual hatred of magic," he says, "so there has always been an element of seriousness and some very strong artistic and intellectual concepts behind their work. As a result, I've never had to write music to fill time while people pull rabbits out of their hats. They always have ideas which are well thought-out and play against expectations, which is also good for music. The best scores are those which are a little bit surprising and take you into an area that you weren't expecting. They've always kept me challenged, and as a result, I've written some of my best stuff for them."

For more information on the 02R96, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Professional Audio, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622; telephone (714) 522-9011; e-mail infostation@yamaha.com; or visit www.yamaha.com/proaudio.

For more information on the 02R96, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Pro Audio & Combo Division, Professional Audio, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622; telephone (714) 522-9011; e-mail infostation@yamaha.com; or visit www.yamaha.com/proaudio.