CHALLENGE: At Will Media previously used Dropbox and Google Drive for its audio-first, fully remote workflow, leading to long wait times, downloading & syncing issues, and other inefficiencies. The dispersed team struggled with efficient collaboration & its systems did not support real-time access to assets for its dispersed editors. Managing media and coordinating with remote engineers was cumbersome, and the administrative overhead, time spent dealing with file compatibility issues added significant strain to the entire audio editing process.

WHY SUITE? Suite's cloud storage seamlessly integrates into At Will's fully remote workflow and provides real-time access to production assets for editors across the country in real-time. Suite facilitates better collaboration for At Will’s fully dispersed team, especially with their reliance on Avid Pro Tools, because it operates as a filesystem that enables full control over file names, locations, and other crucial details for easy file sharing & organization.

“Suite’s powerful and intuitive caching system allows us to collaborate in real-time with no wasted time uploading or downloading.”

— Andrew Holzberger, Senior Audio Engineer, At Will Media

Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing until it smacks you right in the face. That’s the case for the crew at At Will Media (AWM), a podcast studio and full-service production company telling original stories, like Run, Fool!, Let’s Get Quizzical, and Shogun, to millions of listeners every year. While the company maintains recording studios in New York City and Los Angeles, its deep network of remote freelancers, contributors, and editors are the creatives driving its award-winning production efforts. For this audio-first team, everything happens from afar.

Andrew Holzberger, senior audio engineer at AWM, is tasked with ensuring every project runs smoothly. After rising through the ranks over three years at the company, he now manages the entire post process from end-to-end; overseeing an internal team and its media, reviewing materials and drafts, and supporting his audio engineers in any way possible. “I’m involved in every stage of our podcasts, from pre-production—timelines, budget planning, mic recommendations, kit shipping logistics—to overseeing remote and studio recordings during production, to post,” he notes. “Our team steps into action once audio recordings… need to be ingested/organized into Suite. My teams handles the ingest, cleaning, syncing, editing, sound design, music, mixing and mastering of all AWM shows.”

Holzberger, acting as the team’s gatekeeper to files and media, is also charged with organizing assets, assigning permissions, and governing the team’s remote workflow. Prior to using Suite, the laundry list of tasks and consistent time lost trying to sync files with remote editors became too burdensome: Complete workdays in the can, timelines pushed back, editors unable to work. In short, it was a nightmare scenario for any creative studio. “Our main challenge was being able to efficiently share and collaborate on projects,” Holzberger reflects. “We often had to rely on slow downloads/uploads & syncing of data, which would cost us hours per day. We also lacked a sufficient backup system, which Suite’s Time Machine capabilities solved for us.”

Holzberger & his hybrid media team now rely effortlessly on Suite’s cloud workflow. Since Suite mounts directly to the Finder window, it looks and feels the same as working off of a local SSD or NAS system. “Suite operates as a playback volume in Pro Tools just as if it was a local drive,” he explains. This makes the platform extremely intuitive, so his team of dispersed editors & engineers can begin working immediately. “It has been completely seamless,” he notes.

Unlike Dropbox, WeTransfer, Google Drive, or other cloud-based file sharing applications that require individual users to download or sync local versions of files, Suite provides instantaneous access as if everyone on the team is working off of the same local server. When one editor changes and saves a file in New York, Suite automatically updates that asset for every user on AWM’s account in real-time. “This allows multiple engineers to work out of a shared project with lower wait times for uploading/syncing,” Holzberger notes. As Holzberger adds new employees, or updates user permissions, he simply clicks a few buttons. File & personnel management is now painless for AWM.

Keeping up with cutting-edge tools & technology is a habit of creatives who seek to produce the best content possible. Yet challenging the “norm” by introducing a new creative tool, application, workflow, or system can remain a difficult task, no matter the scale. While the way creatives will work evolves, some products and tools remain stagnant at the detriment of the creative teams employing them. Without improvement or innovation, popular tools can quickly become obsolete. Andrew Holzberger & his fully remote team of editors at AWM recognize the necessity to think ahead. “Suite has been a great platform for us… saving us time and energy,” Holzberger says.

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