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Hackenbacker Sends The Voice Of The X Factor Well And Truly 'Packing'.....

Hackenbacker provides a first class service to the film and television industries

Soho audio facility Hackenbacker has been helping Peter Dickson, one of the UK's most famous voices, to capture his trademark voice-over style while he is ‘on the road’.

With a voice that is so immediately recognisable, Peter is the first person TV producers and big name stars turn to when they need a voice that truly delivers. His dulcet tones are now well and truly cemented in the public conscience thanks to his work on Award-winning TV shows and stadium events like The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Family Fortunes and The Paul O’Grady Show.

One drawback of being so busy is the amount of time Peter spends travelling, which means having to record voice-overs ‘on the hoof’.

“I have always been pretty successful at delivering a good vocal sound when on the road,” he explains. “It's a bit of a black art. I have recorded on cruise ships, in hotel bedrooms, in wardrobes and even in cars! However, because of the lack of decent monitoring while out of the studio, I have never been able to fully know whether the "sound" I was delivering was consistent with my signature vocal print.”

To solve this problem, Peter turned to Hackenbacker’s founder Nigel Heath for some help with audio processing and sweetening. Using a combination of Hackenbacker Studio One's Neve fully digital console and Peter's own personal mobile recording rig, including microphone, pre-amp and audio interfaces, Nigel was able to achieve what he calls “The Full Dickson”.

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To do this the Neve’s settings and processing were modified, translated and transferred to Peter’s software by Studio One engineer Alex Fielding. Acoustical and software techniques were employed to ensure that Peter’s voice hits the processing chain in exactly the same way, no matter where he might be recording. Thanks to Hackenbacker’s input Peter can now be confident that, when schedules are tight and he has to lay down work in a non-studio environment, he can deliver a punchy, top-quality voice track with virtually the same sonic qualities it would have if it were recorded in Hackenbacker’s high-end audio facility.

“Nigel and Alex have created an effects stack on my Mac-based recording software that, when applied to any raw WAV files, re-creates as closely as possible the Big Hackenbacker Neve studio sound,” Peter says: “After several hours of experimentation and using several pairs of the finest Mark 1 ear holes in the business, we finally cracked it. This means that I can now deliver the best sounding audio possible while on the road – and all thanks to the guys at Hackenbacker and Mr Neve for his wonderful processors!”

Nigel Heath adds: “This was a particularly interesting technical exercise for us and the end results are really very good.  I suspect that only a really tweaky sound head could tell the difference between the 'big desk' sound and Peter's portable version."

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About Hackenbacker

With more than 25 years experience in the audio post production business, Hackenbacker provides a first class service to the film and television industries. Its award-winning team of sound editors, designers and mixers combine a thorough knowledge of today’s technology with an understanding of the importance of deadlines in order to deliver an exceptional service to all Hackenbacker customers. The facility offers full time technical support and access to the very latest equipment as well as some more esoteric, specialist and custom devices.