Solving 'All' of Sound Lounge's File Transfer Problems

Who is Sound Lounge?

Sound Lounge is a NYC-based audio post-production and mixing company that has been in business for around a quarter-century. The artist-owned and operated studio provides recording, voiceover casting, mixing, ADR, and sound design for film/television and commercial projects for clients such as HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, and Amazon Prime Video.

Re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor, Steve “Major” Giammaria joined Sound Lounge 16 years ago. Major works on film and television projects and says the key to being a good sound engineer is not being noticed by the audience – a little like being a good sports referee.

Global Transfer of Triple-Digit Gigabytes

The audio file packages Sound Lounge sends and receives are often triple-digit gigabytes in size. Sound Lounge deals with dozens, if not hundreds, of large files like this every day. Furthermore, Sound Lounge is constantly sending or receiving to and from remote team members or other stakeholders in locations as far away as Australia. Therefore, they needed a stable, usable, and affordable large file transfer solution.

Aspera: A ‘Tire Fire of Disappointment’

Major and Sound Lounge had previously used Aspera enterprise large file transfer software but weren’t happy with the results or the cost. “It’s a lot of money” for the on-premises version, he explains. So they tried Aspera Cloud next.

“And it was okay for a while,“ he says, “but then they made some changes to it.” The changes, he says, didn’t work for Sound Lounge. “It became a tire fire of disappointment.”

Aside from the hefty price tag, the user interface was extremely difficult for team members, partners, and clients to learn and use effectively.

“In the end, it was simply unusable. The interface was a disaster.”

Sound Lounge began looking for an Aspera alternative. After some brief web research, MASV popped up, and Major liked what he saw.

MASV: Better File Transfer Right Out of the Box

While Major was initially attracted to MASV’s flexible pricing model and low start-up cost of $0, he also liked that it doesn’t try to do too many things at once.

“It’s not a nightmare of too many things like some cloud storage and file transfer platforms.”

After getting up and running in MASV in just a few minutes, right out of the box – a huge bonus considering their challenges with previous solutions – they quickly set up a series of individual MASV Portals for each of their many projects.

Portals allow collaborators without a paid subscription or even a MASV login to easily send data to account owners by dragging and dropping a file. Portals also have a fully customizable look and feel, which are used to add company logos and branding – or other accoutrements.

Major says his group typically receives files from the picture department. Those files are often shuttled back and forth between his internal team members either offsite or at the company’s Flatiron District office. From there, completed files are sent on to the finishing house, which makes the final master.

MASV: A Frictionless Workflow

At the end of the day, MASV has embedded itself as a key workflow and productivity tool for Sound Lounge.

Organization with MASV Portals

Because Sound Lounge often works on as many as 5-10 shows or films a day, their well-oiled system of one branded MASV Portal per project has made it easy to keep track of and organize incoming and outgoing media.

Remote Flexibility

MASV has afforded Sound Lounge way more flexibility in terms of accommodating remote work – both during the pandemic and in the future.

“We use MASV to shuttle files around to a regionally distributed team of sound artists.”

Time Saved

Major adds that all that convenience MASV brings adds up to significant time saved on day-to-day large file transfers.

“It streamlines that process. Internally, it’s just easier to send a MASV back-and-forth between team members.

Client Satisfaction

MASV’s simplified interface and hassle-free user experience makes it far easier for Major and his team to collaborate with clients with no logins, coaching, or troubleshooting required.

“Externally, you want a frictionless experience for your clients. If I’m sending it to someone, they don’t need an account, they don’t have to sync to something – it’s just, ‘Here’s a link, download your stuff and be on your way.’ And even the most tech unsavvy person can figure it out.”