AES Student Blog

Interview with Nikola Jeremic (Advanced School of Electrical Engineering, Belgrade) – GOLD Category 4
 

SDA:   How long did you work on your competition entry? Was this your first entry?

     NJ:     I worked for about a week on it. Two days for recording, two for editing, and three for mixing. Yes, it was my first entry.

SDA:   Tell us about the production of your entry. Stories? Inspirations?

     NJ:     Two of the most interesting things that I ever did were on this recording: I made a spaceship cabin atmosphere by placing a mic inside a blender and running the blender on different speeds to capture a variety of sounds. Then, I used Nuendo to do a lot of pitch bending and shifting to get the sound I wanted. I also recorded animals at Belgrade Zoo for aliens that are featured in the video. The monkeys were difficult to record because they were throwing feces at me!

I get a lot of inspiration from movies, video games, and books. I am a big fan of all of the projects that have come out of Skywalker Sound.

SDA:   What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?

     NJ:     My passion for audio was initiated quite accidentaly. I wasn't a very good student in highschool, and eventualy I had to find an occupation for myself, so I started playing guitar. I had a couple of bands, but they didn't last for long. I started working on my own and got interested in film and game soundtracks. I took that path and never looked back. I learned most things by myself; I am a self-educated musician and composer. After some time, I decided to bring my creativity to a higher level and applied for Advanced School Of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade to start learning the technical side of sound.

SDA:   Funniest experience as an engineer so far?

     NJ:     Hmmm... Definitely the monkeys and the flying feces while I was recording sounds for this competition entry!

SDA:   Biggest mistake you made during a production?

     NJ:     Recording the monkeys. Also: forgetting to shut down the “destructive recording“ in Pro Tools. That's a bad thing to do.

SDA:   Favorite frequency?

     NJ:     120Hz of big, bad, Taiko Drum bass boom.

SDA:   Favorite mic, outboard box, and plugin?

     NJ:     Favorite Mic – AKG 414 (It's great for any type of studio recording)
Favorite Outboard Box – Lexicon PCM 96 Reverb
Favorite Plugin – UAD Neve 88RS Channel Strip

SDA:   Best recording of all time?

     NJ:     The whole sound for the movie “Inception”, including Hans Zimmer's music score.

SDA:   Do you play any instruments?

     NJ:     Yes, I play guitars, anything with a keyboard, and some percussion instruments.

SDA:   Any other hobbies?

     NJ:     Watching a lot of movies, playing video games, reading, collecting Fighter Airplane models.

SDA:   The best part of the 132nd AES Convention?

     NJ:     The Education Forum, Carreer Fair, and, of course, The Student Recording Competition.

SDA:   The best thing about the AES organization?

     NJ:     A whole lot of people who love the same thing, getting together in one place to share their knowledge and experience.

SDA:   Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

     NJ:     Hopefully working at Skywalker Sound or Warner Brothers Scoring Stage, writting my own music for films and video games.

Nikola Jeremic has made available his submission for viewing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLq6AxQYN0.

Nikola has also recently been featured on PreSonus' blog for his tutorials on their Studio One DAW. Read his articles here:
www.presonus.com/blog/index.php/2012/04/26/orchestral-scoring-in-presonus-studio-one-2-pt-...
www.presonus.com/blog/index.php/2012/05/07/orchestral-scoring-in-studio-one-2-part-2/...