Delicious Digital:
The Future Tastes Delicious
The next generation of media companies is here, in the form of London-based Delicious Digital. Established three years ago, and describing itself as a “music communications house”, the company uses Apple technology to harness the bountiful creative energies of its directors and offer clients a complete service from concept to finished product.
With a long and impressive client list that includes the BBC, ITV, five, National Geographic Channel, FCUK, Virgin and Warner Village Cinemas, Delicious Digital is a media-savvy collective of musicians, producers and brand consultants who not only write, perform and produce the music that defines their clients’ brands but also devise and manage their clients’ “musical identities”. As Delicious founder, and one of the company’s three directors, Ollie Raphael, puts it: “There are lots of companies that do the different things that Delicious does, but there aren’t many that do everything we do”.
“The G5 is simply the best, fastest and most able computer when it comes to handling audio. The PC-based systems just didn't handle it as well.”
The key to this broad offering is the company’s technology infrastructure. Like many new media companies, Delicious need systems that are efficient enough to keep the project on budget and on schedule, and have the ability to effect quick and easy exchange of large amounts of information. At the heart of the company’s operation are its three Power Mac G5s and two Power Mac G4s, complemented by numerous PowerBooks and external FireWire drives, which are used for storage.
The company recently switched from a PC set-up to one based almost exclusively on Macs. Ed Moris, another of Delicious’ directors, says: “The G5 is simply the best, fastest and most able computer when it comes to handling audio. In our line of work, it’s not unusual to be working with 24-part harmonies over a 20-channel backing track, running three or four pieces of software simultaneously. The PC-based systems just didn’t handle it as well”.
As far as audio software is concerned, the Delicious team run Logic Pro 6.4.2 on the G5, along with Propellerheads Reason 2.5, ReCycle 2.1 for chopping loops, ReVision (freeware for working to picture with Reason), Reload for sound library transfer from multiple platforms to Reason, and of course iTunes for organising music and burning CDs.
Moris explains: “Usually I’ll get a backing track together on Reason — it’s a great program for getting ideas down quickly. I’ll run that through ReWire with Logic to get the live instrumentation and vocal takes recorded. This enables sync and use of the Logic mixer for all Reason channels, which gives us much more control. Once the audio is recorded, I can then export a piece to ReCycle, chop it up and play it back in Reason”.
He adds: “To have the freedom to do this without having to quit other apps has greatly improved our productivity. It’s my ideal way of working — a perfect combination of pattern sequencing, linear sequencing and live instrumentation.
“Working with a system that gives you virtually zero latency on recordings has been a godsend. With previous incarnations of these digital recording systems, I often found myself monitoring just the input, or splitting signals, or having no monitoring at all. I’m also loving the speed of FireWire 2 — it’s lightning fast”.
These techniques and technologies were used to great effect recently on the launch of FCUK FM in April 2004. The company’s third director, Ian Taylor, explains: “Ollie came up with the idea and went along to see French Connection. They just ran with it”. Delicious was responsible for the concept, creation and project management of FCUK FM. It set out to create what it termed an “anti-jingle” package for the station, plus all the audio for the FCUK FM Web site, including sound effects and music.
“It's like being a chef and having an entire kitchen full of really cool utensils.”
Delicious added a video element to their portfolio in 2003, when Carl Fospero, former bureau chief of GMTV in New York, joined the company. As Ollie Raphael explains: “Carl’s input represents another natural extension for Delicious. It seemed logical to be able to provide pictures to go with the sound”.
In the video suite, Fospero uses a dual 1GHz Power Mac G4 with a 17-inch Apple Studio Display and a 17-inch PowerBook G4 for remote edits and music. The bulk of the video editing takes place in Final Cut Pro 4, while DVD authoring is handled by DVD Studio Pro 3; Fospero uses Pro Tools if music editing is required.
Fospero says of Final Cut Pro: “The software offers many options for transitions, filters and colour correction, and the open architecture of Mac OS X allows for an endless stream of third-party plug-ins. I’m a great fan of FCP’s active/reactive timeline as well”.
He adds: “What is especially useful is the toolkit. It’s like being a chef and having an entire kitchen full of really cool utensils. The ability to grab a tool and make a change without picking ins and outs and fumbling with mode switching is brilliant”.
Fospero has also found DVD Studio Pro an extremely useful tool in the editing suite. He says: “We can assemble a DVD however we like, and drag-and-drop options have cut the learning curve considerably. When we’re ready to burn, DVD Studio Pro also handles the MPEG-2 encoding. Really friendly stuff”.
Raphael concludes: “Using those programs in conjunction with reliable, powerful machines is the way to be able to provide a high-quality service to your clients. Rather than our computer systems just being something we use for our business, they’re an integral part of it. For us, the Mac is part of the development of our business”.
