Featured Corp Member: <br>DBC Sound

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DBC SOUND INC.
Interview w/ Kat Liffiton

Studio Manager

dbc sound is an audio post production facility based in the heart of Vancouver.

Learn more by visiting their website

You can also follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

Tell us a bit about DBC Sound. How long has DBC been in business? How did it start?
Bill Sheppard and Dean Giammarco had been working together for years at their previous company Cinesonic, when they decided to make the move out to East Vancouver and form a new company together called dbc sound inc. We’ve been in business at our home at 1256 E 6th Ave since 2002, and are still going strong 21 years later!

What are you working on right now and/or recently completed?
We’ve recently completed work on Netflix’s Virgin River, Lark Productions series Family Law, and the Universal feature Violent Night.

What is a favourite project that you've worked on and why?
One of our standout films was The Legend of Barney Thomson. The director was also the showrunner, and was very creatively connected to the sound process. He gave us lots of opportunity and freedom to be creative and play with all the sound elements to really form and enhance moments through the film.

Violent Night was also a lot of fun, as it was our first theatrical Atmos project. A show of this size also creates an opportunity for us to challenge ourselves to produce the highest standard of work, and we always enjoy collaborating with teams from around the world.

What percentage of your work is with local vs international clients/projects? This fluctuates from year to year, but in 2022 we were 65% local and 35% international. Some years we’re 100% local, but it’s always nice to welcome international projects into our studio!

Are your mix rooms currently equipped in Dolby Atmos? All of our rooms are currently equipped with Atmos. Our mix Stage 1 is equipped with theatrical ATMOS monitoring, and Stage 1, Stage 2, and our Shag Room all have home entertainment ATMOS monitoring.

What software / hardware / plugins can you not live without? ProTools! Ok, if we’re delving a bit deeper than the obvious – Izotope Rx and Cedar DNS noise reduction. Noise reduction software really helps us to clean the production dialogue to give us a blank slate to build the creative atmosphere of a scene. AVID/DAD MTRX provides a flexible routing and monitoring software that makes multi-station and multi-format workflows easier to manage. It’s also made a major improvement in DA converters, helping the sonic quality of our monitoring sources.

What impact did the pandemic have on your business? Do you consider it a thing of the past? Certainly not a thing of the past! We’re still seeing the effects of the pandemic in certain projects that come to us, and we still take safety precautions in the studio (particularly around ADR recording) to play our part in keeping everyone healthy. Because we’re such a small studio, comprised of only 5 full time employees, we still monitor ourselves very closely to ensure we’re not passing any illness around to each other.

How long have you been a VPA Corporate Member? Since the VPA’s inception.