A Big Foote in the Big Apple: this audio studio, focusing on the agency world, operates more like a band than a company - Audio Today & Tomorrow - Big Foote Music - Company Profile

Post, May 1, 2002 by Christine Bunish

NEWYORK -- Everyone's heard of the legendary Big Foot, the elusive yeti reputed to roam remote forests and mountains. So it would seem unlikely for Manhattan to have a Big Foot of its own -- that is, until Big Foote Music (www.bigfoote.com) came to town in 1994.

This new breed of Big Foote is a fun-loving, hard-working group of spot music composers and producers responsible for such diverse credits as a "Peter Gunn meets Moby" melding for WorldComm from MVBMS/NY, Texas-style bar rock for Pepsi and a heavy funk sound for KFC from BBDO/NY, a Nelson Riddle-inspired jazz score for Lifesavers from FCB/NY and a nostalgic bachelor-pad track for Coca-Cola from McCann-Erickson/NY.

Founded by brothers Ray and Sherman Foote, veterans of Manhattan's commercial music industry Big Foote Music also includes composers Kari Steinert, Matt Hauser, Chris Jordao, Paul Riggio, Louis King, Darren Solomon and executive producer/composer Paul Seymour. Sherman is also a composer while Ray is an executive producer.

Big Foote operates "more like a band than a company," says Ray, developing different ideas collectively and presenting them to clients. All of the composers have worked as professional musicians before honing their talents in spot music.

"The band metaphor helps us shape how we think of ourselves," Ray continues. "A band is much more flexible with instantaneous collaboration if you need a singer, a blues guitar or a bass line. Every Big Foote composer is pretty much a chameleon."

Sherman believes every opportunity to write a piece of music is a chance to learn something new -- "an interesting guitar sound, some sort of weird processing, an odd synth sound. Our mantra is learn, learn, learn. When you really stretch yourself creatively, from the stretch comes inspiration."

Sherman likens each spot to an "archery circle with a bull's eye everyone -- the agency, the client, the writer -- wants to hit." While Big Foote will pursue the agency's idea of how to strike the target, it also asks to "do a little free thinking" of its own for a project," Sherman notes.

THE WORK

For Running Errands, a MasterCard Debit Card commercial featuring a mother on a frenetic race to buy last-minute school supplies for her son, McCann-Erickson/NY knew it wanted high-energy music that would drive the spot but had no other set ideas. "We got everyone involved in the game and presented a range of work truly valid for the spot," from electronic tracks to jazz, Sherman explains. The agency selected a fast-paced, big beat cowritten by Sherman and Darren Soloman.

Big Foote's work for Cingular from BBDO is a prime example of band-style collaboration with Sherman, Jordao and Soloman crafting 18 pieces of music in a week and a half. "We were so busy we forgot Pedro Ramos was coming," Ray admits. The Brazilian-born musician had been invited to play his four-stringed cavaquinho for the composers. "We decided to seize the moment and recorded him playing some standard Brazilian chord changes along with samba and bossa nova rhythms," Ray recalls. "We already had [drummer] Shawn Pelton playing on some other tracks so we had a Brasil 66, Stan Getz beat going and wrote melodies against it" One of Soloman's melodies, with a lighthearted bit of synthesized whistle, was perfect for an upbeat, youthful Cingular message. "We fused the traditional and non-traditional, the chaos of the moment and the speed of working together very freely," Ray reports.

Big Foote has "a nice mix of old-school and new technologies which enables us to create unusual, unique and special content very quickly," Sherman points out "Today, if you can't do a project fast enough, you lose the job. So we've built a network to handle our human assets really well."

THE STUDIO

The facility, designed by Richard Alderson, is built around hub-and-node architecture for maximum flexibility. A number of protocols are-employed to easily move information around the studios: 16 channels of audio; five channels of digital information in the form of coaxial cables; and a 100 Base T LAN network with several switches in the hub. A live room accommodates 18 players comfortably but a node in the public space also allows instruments and vocals to be recorded there.

Big Foote's five audio suites are similarly equipped with Digidesign Pro Tools systems with Mix Core and Mix Farm PCI cards; Emagic's ESX24 and Logic Audio Platinum composing software; an assortment of plugins for processing and effects; and Yamaha 02R and 03D mixers. MIDI gear includes Roland XV-5080; Roland JV- 1080; Roland 760 samplers; Micro Q synth; E-mu Audity; Alesis D5; and Kurzweil Micro Piano. Also available are Roland GP1OO guitar effects processors; an Eventide H3000 D/SE Multi effects processor; vintage guitars and a vintage drum kit; a wide array of mics; and Avalon, API and Focusrite mic preamps. Two rooms are capable of 5.1 surround mixes. Key equipment is on wheels so the rooms can be redesigned and customized for Big Foote's composer/engineers and for outside engineers hired for special orchestral or band sessions.