Ricardo Cutz is the owner of Estúdio 106db and is a sound engineer and mixing technician who has worked with audio for the past 21 years. He started his career as a music production assistant in 1995, and since 1999 has been working in audio post production. Between 2005 and 2008, he worked at Estúdio Mega, where he did post production on his first feature film. In 2013, he founded Estúdio 106db in Rio de Janeiro city, which now works mainly with audio post production for film and television.

The latest works of 106db include Tomás Portela’s Special Operations; Claudio Torres’s Magnifica 70 (HBO); Jorge Duran’s Romance Policial (“Police Romance”), Gustavo Accioli’s Mulheres no Poder (“Women in Power”) and Douglas Duarte’s Seven Visits. The works also include the TV shows Vai que Cola (Multishow), As Canalhas (GNT), Tempero de Família (GNT), A segunda Vez (Multishow), Super Bonita (GNT) and Questão de Família (GNT).

The post production workflow at Estúdio 106db is based on Avid. The studio has two rooms: Studio A, for 5.1 surround mixing; and Studio B, which features two stations for stereo mixing and one for editing. The studio is well known as one of the best audio post production studios in Brazil.

The rooms feature four Pro Tools | HD systems, with Pro Tools | HD Native; Thunderbolt and PCIe cards; and Pro Tools | HD Omni and Pro Tools | HD I/O audio interfaces. At Studio B, the stations still rely on Artist Control and Artist Mix control interfaces. The Pro Tools | S6, M10 control surface with 16 faders, is used at Studio A, where 5.1 surround mixing is performed.

“Pro Tools | S6 is an exceptional evolution on Avid control surfaces; it has an excellent layout, ergonomics and workflow speed”

—Ricardo Cutz, Sound Designer and Owner of Estúdio 106db

“The S6 is incredible,” says Cutz. “For several years I used nearly all Avid’s surfaces, so I was pleased to see that S6 not only brings the same concepts of excellence in ergonomics and the working speed of System 5, but it also has an amazing integration with Pro Tools, which is an exceptional evolution of the brand’s control surfaces.”

According to Cutz, one of the greatest benefits that S6 provided to his studio was the flexibility on workflow. This not only helped to accelerate projects, but also provided the professionals with more time to listen and think over the projects.

“Nowadays, when we have complex, heavily processed sessions, the Pro Tools | HD systems provide us with a surface with an excellent layout which is very easy to use, so we can work faster and more easily,” he says. “The S6 is especially good because it has everything there in front of you; you just need to press a button to enter the command you need.”

With a career of more than 20 years, Cutz gives a few tips for young professionals who want to follow the path of audio post production for cinema and TV: “You need to study a lot. Persevere; be attentive to art; open yourself to the various languages of cinema. And, of course, you’ll need to work a lot!”

www.106db.com.br