Composer/ sound designer Andy Newell has launched ripe sound, a music/sound design house headquartered in San Rafael. For the past 15 years, Newell operated earwax productions, San Francisco, with partners Jim McKee and Barney Jones. According to McKee, earwax will continue as a music/sound design firm active in various arenas, including film, television, radio, the Internet and multimedia endeavors such as CD-ROMs and museum installations.
Characterizing the split as amicable, Newell said a "difference of opinion" regarding the direction of earwax led him to part ways with his partners. Newell’s new venture will focus on the spot and feature film arenas, as well as on games and music "products" such as a sound design and sound effects library.
Several former earwax staffers have moved over to ripe sound, including sound designer Chris Clanin, composer/producer David Earl, sound designer/composer Steve Kirk and producer Alisa McMullen. Newell serves as executive producer and lead composer/sound designer at ripe.
Although ripe sound is based in San Rafael, Newell will operate out of several studios via informal relationships with other companies, including Ice House, San Rafael, and others in the San Francisco area. "I’m trying to decentralize as much as possible," said Newell. "The idea is to have one main office and a group of satellite studios connected through a central server. We supply gear and support to the studios we have an affiliation with, so we can go in and work or meet with clients there."
Thus far, ripe sound has contributed to several spot campaigns, including: sound design for Discover Card via Goodby Silverstein and Partners, San Francisco, which was directed by Kuntz & Maguire (Tom and Mike, respectively) of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films; and music and sound design for the Wall Street Journal, also through Goodby, which was directed by Breck Eisner of Los Angeles-based Palomar Pictures. Most recently, the company was tapped for a forthcoming Aflac insurance campaign via the Kaplan Thaler Group, New York, to be directed by Tom Routson of bicoastal Tool of North America.
As a composer and sound designer, Newell has had a hand in numerous awards, including a Silver Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival and three Gold Clio Awards for several spots in Goodby’s 1998 Budweiser lizards campaign. The Budweiser ads were directed by Routson (at the time an agency creative at Goodby), and run through bicoastal/international @radical.media.
Newell has also composed and sound designed such noteworthy spots as E*Trade’s "TriMount Studios." That ad, via Goodby and helmed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international hungry man, was one of the entries that contributed to Buckley winning the Directors Guild of America Award as best commercial director of ’99. Newell served, too, as sound effects editor on the Academy Award-winning team for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
