Evan Desjardins

The Last Butterball

Commercial inanity from a time since past.

It was almost exactly a year ago that I got the call from Syndicate Sound asking if I could come in last minute to record and mix a TV spot for them. This was just after Doug Ford had announced the first impending COVID-19 lockdown but before it would take effect. Reluctantly, I said I would. The next morning I biked to the studio and donned my 3M … Read the rest “The Last Butterball”

‘Crewelwork’ by Justin Torres [Amazon Original Stories]

I enjoyed recording this short memoir by author Justin Torres. Recorded for Brilliance Audio at DB Audio in Toronto.

Excerpt from Crewelwork on Soundcloud

I didn’t do the edit, though. It kind of sounds as if they sped up the read. Is that common? I know many listeners will turn up the playback speed on their devices to whiz through a book if they think they reader is going too slowly. Regardless, I enjoy these … Read the rest “‘Crewelwork’ by Justin Torres [Amazon Original Stories]”

‘Melanin’ by Naranie Tam with Kobena Aquaa-Harrison

I had the pleasure of recording, mixing and mastering this single by Nigerian singer Naranie Tam. She and multi-instrumentalist Kobena Aquaa-Harrison joined me at Blue Sound in Toronto in 2019 and recorded a couple improvised pieces including this one which we later developed, mixed and mastered together.

You can read more about the artist and the music in this lovely writeup on YAWA: https://yawamag.com/melanin-a-welcome-home/

From the article:

My Favorite thing about Melanin is how Naranie’s

Read the rest “‘Melanin’ by Naranie Tam with Kobena Aquaa-Harrison”

Grace m905 (knob feel review)

Read the rest “Grace m905 (knob feel review)”

Joe Rogan Voice AI

Earlier this year I collaborated with Toronto software start-up Dessa to produce a text-to-speech model with Joe Rogan‘s voice. Joe thought it was pretty trippy!

Can you tell real from fake? Try the blind test at: https://fakejoerogan.com/

Dessa published a rundown of the process in two parts on Medium:
Part 1:
RealTalk: This Speech Synthesis Model Our Engineers Built Recreates a Human Voice Perfectly
Part 2:
RealTalk (Pt. II): How We Recreated Joe Rogan’s Read the rest “Joe Rogan Voice AI”