Solar Audio Recording Studios engineer Hayward Parrott says Halifax was a perfect place to set up shop and at the same time, put down some roots.

One of three partners in Solar, Parrott has contributed to the Canadian and international music scenes over the years by collaborating with top artists from across the country and around the world. He has worked on musical pieces with Henry Mancini, Michael Damon and Mark Snow to name a few. With experience in both recording music and post-production work, about five years ago he journeyed east to Halifax to join Solar. He has since helped turn Solar into a leading Halifax audio post-production facility.

Parrott says when he arrived at Solar, it was, to his knowledge, ‘really the only studio east of Montreal, aside from the cbc studios, that was really a full-production music studio.’ There was also little to no post-production on the audio end being done at Solar or anywhere else on the East Coast. He immediately saw Solar’s potential to become more than just a one-dimensional recording studio.

‘Solar was set up properly and it had a good sounding room,’ says Parrott of his first glimpse at the Solar studio space. ‘There was just one big studio in this facility so I carved it up and made two, because it was a pretty big floor space. I made a little post room in the back and we immediately [began recording post audio] for Street Cents [CBC Halifax].’

Solar continued to work on the cbc series in an audio capacity for the next five years. Only this year did the cbc start doing Street Cents’ audio post work in-house.

‘Although we are still recording music in the big room, we’ve been doing a lot of post in the back room,’ says Parrott, who last year took Solar the final step, completely transforming the ‘back room’ into a fully equipped audio post room. The renovation included a 5.1 surround-sound system, with a six-by-eight-foot motorized screen so that he and his colleagues could begin scoring mows and television specials. It is now a fixture in the Nova Scotia production community, with a reputation for quality and for being able to handle any post audio job.

Parrott says there was a definite need within the East Coast production scene for a more focused post audio shop and that he and his associates were merely satisfying this need. But now that Solar has the means to operate as a fully functional audio post shop, the work does not necessarily begin and end in the studio.

‘I wanted to do some more active post work,’ he explains. ‘I’m going back into production with [the series] Steeple Chasing in July, so I’ll be doing all of the remote recording in churches for that. We’re more or less going more that way.’

But fear not, music lovers. Solar, Parrott assures, will never be solely a post shop. ‘I’m not negating music recording, because we have three albums on the hook we are currently doing. I just wanted to make sure that the room reached its full potential.’

Solar has serviced film and television productions such as The Divine Ryans, Love and Death on Long Island, Pit Pony and Ice Storm. The company has handled more than its share of adr work, as well.

Parrott says he is hopeful that as more work from the East Coast stays in the east through post-production, more qualified individuals will emerge.

‘I have started talking to a whole bunch of people and we are slowly starting to build it up,’ he says. ‘Foley is probably one of the biggest downfalls because there are no foley artists here. We are slowly but surely overcoming that and trying to put a turnkey operation together so we can not necessarily grab people from away but keep them here.’

www.solaraudio.com