Twenty-six years ago, Robert Dudzic arrived in Connecticut from Poland equipped
with drumming skills, determination, and empty pockets. Eventually he landed a
production gig at WKSS radio in Hartford, and for the next few years he learned
about audio production. Upon departing WKSS, together with GrooveWorx he
created his first production library, Trynity HDFX.

Today Dudzic is an A-list producer and sound designer whose work graces movie
trailers for Inferno, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Suicide Squad, Terminator:
Genesis, and countless others. You hear his sounds on virtually every TV network
and major cable channel. He also creates sample libraries used by composers,
producers, and DJs worldwide-including the PON Sound Set for TASCAM’s
MiNiSTUDIO audio interface.

To work at this stratospheric level, Dudzic became a grandmaster of field recording,
and he chooses his tools with care. Among his most important tools are TASCAM’s
DR-22WL, DR-44WL, DR-100mkIII, and DR-680mkII field recorders. “I used to
record with the original DR-680 8-track field recorder, and now my main recorder is
the DR-680mkII but I also use the DR-44WL a lot,” he begins. “I use the DR-680mkII
in the studio, as well. I often need to record quickly, and with the DR-680mkII, I
can plug six microphones into the back, and my whole setup takes ten minutes.”

Dudzic often uses the four-channel DR-44WL to record in multitrack, as well. “At a
construction site, I set the DR-44WL in the front seat of the car and plugged in a
shotgun microphone,” he recalls. “I pointed the shotgun mic directly at a machine
that was breaking glass, so I have the direct sound of breaking glass, plus the
ambient sounds from the recorder’s stereo mics. In my editor, I could individually
control the levels of the direct and ambient sounds. The recording has a very nice
presence, and the recording quality from the DR-44WL is spectacular.”

Another Dudzic technique involves contact mics. “We know how a door sounds when
you move the knob, close it, and pull your key,” he notes. “But I put a contact
microphone on the lock and attached a second contact mic to the wood of the door,
capturing the little sounds you don’t normally hear.’

In the studio, Dudzic relies on the DR-680mkII. “I keep it on the left side of my
design table,” he explains, “and I record with, say, a condenser mic, a stereo pair
of studio mics, a shotgun mic, and a contact mic. The recorder controls are next to
my left hand, which is more convenient than recording to the computer. When I’m
done, I pop out the SD card, put it in my card reader, and bring the tracks into my
editor, and I have all tracks labelled, lined up, and ready to go.”