Hi Folks,
My name is John DiLeo. I have my own business, and work as a composer and sound designer for video, TV and multimedia programs. On the side I still play gigs, and teach sound production on the college level. I am 45 (ouch!!!), and old enough to remember the joy of going from club to club with a suitcase Rhodes, a B3 and a Leslie.
Over the years I've written and published quite a bit of music, though much of my time today is spent soundtracking videos, making music yes, but also dropping in/creating SFX, editing/processing VO, etc. My clients are primarily corporate and educational. I used to do commercial work, and actually tracked a few network TV ads, but I'm old enough now not to worry about being a star. Paying the mortgage and having a good quality of life for my family are now my prime motivations.
I use a Mac G4 Dual 867, with 2GB RAM, and run Pro Tools and DP4. I've used Pro Tools going back to the original 2 track "Sound Tools", but have been using it less and less. Digi has a tendency to obsolete their own hardware, which drives me crazy, so MOTU has become my primary medium.
For keyboards, I have a Triton Pro, with the Moss card, and an old Korg SG-1x digital piano, which I still love. For modules, I have an Alesis D4 and QSR, and a Proteus 1+Orchestra. I find myself using plug in Synths more and more, and have gradually thinned the ranks of my hardware synths and sampler. I use Propellerheads Reason and Sample Tank, but I've lately been completely taken with Spectrasonics Atmosphere. It just has excellent textures for visual work, and it's easy, fast and intuitive to edit sounds. I also use some of the soft synths in Pluggo, but I'm now working in OSX (and LOVING it), and I'm waiting for Sample Tank and Pluggo to catch up. I use an MTP-AV/USB, a Baby Hui and an evoluttion UC-16, which is great for tweaking and automating software knobs. I have several sets of Waves plug ins, and love the L1 in particular. It really punches up video and multimedia tracks.
Audiowise, I have a ton of stuff accumulated over the years, so I'll stick to the majors. I have various mics of various flavors, and run them into an A-designs MP-1 or a Joe Meek VC1Qcs. I use a MOTU 896 Firewire audio interface, an little FMR RNC and several sets of monitors. Event TR8s, Yamaha's NS-10 (the ORIGINAL units, made for home stereos!). I recently did something really radical and sold my venerable Mackie 24-8 board to get something smaller. So many of the functions that used to take place in the mixer have migrated into the Mac, that I would find myself using only two channels on a project. I dove in and got, hold onto your hats, a Behringer DDX3216. Behringer?? Yeah, that's right. This mixer is spectacular! It's incredibly versatile, has decent built in FX, great sounding EQ, and in general, has a marvelous sound - - sweeter than my beloved Mackie. It also expands my 896 substantially, via the ADAT ports. I also have a Lucid GenX6/96 holding things together. True, the DDX will only run up to 48k, but I rarely use 96k. Anyway, I only run my synths and some external decks and FX modules through the Behri, all of which operate at 48k or below. Vocals and acoustic stuff go right into the 896 for 96k operation.
I had good luck with a tiny Behri location mixer, as well as their Feedback Destroyer, and found them to be excellent, so I took the chance. I'm very glad I did. I can't say I'll go out and buy every Behri version of every other piece of gear out there, but this mixer is a winner. I'm starting to think the anti-Behri feelings out there may be a little bit of a snot factor. I'm way beyond trying to play the "gear wars" game!
I have a Masterdisk, Tascam DAT, Sony MiniDisc, and a lot of old hardware processors, and various computer peripherals. I also play guitar and have a POD-XT, and sveeral guitars and basses, including a Variax- another monster item.
That's about it. It's nice to meet you all, and I hope you're all doing well and having fun!
Best regards,
neon
