​Grayson Music is a full service music house. Along with its flagship studios in Toronto, Grayson recently opened offices/studios in New York City and Nashville.

​Grayson Music wanted to tell the story of this expansion not only visually but also encompass the company’s incredible passion for music and sound.

​The animated representation of recorded waveforms (that are found in digital audio workstations such as ProTools or Logic) became the playground in which to tell that story of expansion, while also showcasing Grayson’s musical and sound design skills in the best way possible…with expressive and unique sound.

​The sound design teams based in Toronto, New York and Nashville went out into the field and spent countless hours recording, collecting and editing sounds that were unique to each of their cities. They then shared these collections with their fellow music producers and composers to collaborate and create soundscapes that represented each city. These sounds were then woven together in a musical way to create a bespoke piece for each city. While 4 sounds per city are highlighted in the slides that follow, hundreds of sounds were collected on the ground to craft a soundscape unique to each city.

​Can you hear the subway chimes of the TTC in Toronto? The clacking of vehicles crossing the Brooklyn Bridge? The sizzle of the famous Nashville Hot Chicken?

​Each skyline’s waveform was made up of hundreds of vertical bands. The goal with the animation was to mimic the way a waveform is played back in ProTools with a live, responsive animation trailing right behind the playhead. The height of each line was multiplied by a variable to dynamically drive its height. That variable was synced to the transients, or musical hits, in the track so that the dynamism in the waveform directly correlated with the audio bed itself, linking the audio and the visuals.

​As the waveform wiped from itself to the various city skylines, it did so in 3D space giving full camera control so that moments in the audio could be accentuated while signature buildings from each of the cities could be highlighted. Rapid push and pull movements with the camera as well as depth of field effects were used to compliment the swells and hits in the audio. The result is a dynamic edit which keeps things exciting while letting the sleek simplicity of the waveforms shine through.

​Expansion went live on the Grayson Music website (contact page) at the end of June 2023.​