The Underrated Series – H Sridhar(Master of Sound Mixing and Audiography)
iView Author: SRIDHAR MAYUR (Hyderabad, India)
Email: With Held
” The Underrated Series – H Sridhar(Master of Sound Mixing and Audiography)”
First my condolences to the family of H Sridhar. He passed away on 01 Dec’08 due to cardiac arrest. This article is a tribute to the master of sound mixing and audiography. He engineered the correct sound equilibrium to the songs and hence made sound eloquent. His contribution and work in Audiography is commendable and has set standards which are unmatched.
H. Sridhar, (Sridhar Hariharan/H.Padmanabh) was a sound engineer famous for his works which garnered acclaim across the nation and won him pretigious awards for his incredible work. He had pioneered the use of Digital Sound for Indian films in the DTS format. He was the Chief Audio Engineer at Media Artists(India’s premier and most sought after studio for both album recordings and audio post-production for film and video). He was a mathematics graduate, with keen interest in electronics and formal music training, he started a professional sound engineering career in 1988.
Among Sridhar’s many professional credits was the fact that he engineered all songs and background scores for the renowned music director A R Rahman. On most of A.R Rahman’s audio covers, the top billing among technicians would be H.Sridhar and his Media Artists. It was Mani Ratnam who introduced him to A R Rahman and together the duo has produced outstanding music. Take a look at some of their best of picks – Roja, Gentleman, Kadhalan, Thiruda Thiruda, Bombay, Duet, Mahanadi, Rangeela, Kuruthippunnal, Muthu, Indian, Minsaara Kanavu and Iruvar. Most of these were recorded in Panchathan Recording Inn (Rahman’s own recording studio ), Madras. He had engineered over 200 films and worked closely with Manirathnam, Ram Gopal Varma, Ashutosh Gowarikar, K Balachander, Shankar, Kamal Haasan, etc.
He also engineered and mixed albums for international artists. Some* of his Hindi film works(apart from the ones mentioned above) include Satya (1998), Dil Se (1998), Pukar (2000), Lagaan(2001), Dil Chahta Hai (2001) (final mixing) , Saathiya (2002), Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities (2004), Water (2005), Guru (2007), Critically Acclaimed – Dharam (2007) , Cheeni Kum (2007) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008).
Sridhar was awarded the The National Award for Best Audiography four times, the films are:
1. Mahanadi(Tamil) in 1994
2. Dil Se (1999)
3. Lagaan (2001)
4. Kannathil Muththamittal(Tamil) in 2003
The Music for Mahanadi was composed by the ‘meastro’ Ilayaraja amd for the other films it was A R Rahman.
Now, for a peek into the genius.Till now you’ve been listening to the songs like a A R Rahman song, now get a little in-depth and check out the mixing and the overlapping of sounds and instrumentation in the songs. Give your ears a different angle…Go for it…
1. Roja – Pudhu vellai mazhai
2. Alaipayuthey – Sakhiye Snehidiye(The Original ‘Saathiya’)
3. Rang De Basanti – Ru Ba Ru
Whenever I listen to this song…something happens…I feel very emotional….something very close-to kinda feeling creeps
in(this is just my bit)
4. Jodha Akbaar – Khwaja Mere Khwaja
Thats H Sridhar!! Immortal, just like his songs!!
Hope when you listen to some of these songs in future, you will think of H Sridhar….and his work….
Thanks and Regards
Sridhar Mayur
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Nice tribute …great songs all of them. Pardon my ignorance, but is this the same Sridhar, Aamir referred to on his blog?
Yeah you are right kic
Sridhar Mayur- nice write up.
Kic- he’s the same Sridhar
BTW H.Sridhar or H.S as he’s known in the film circles passed away while he was doing the last minute touch up work on Ghajini.Thats a hallmark of a true professional.I really salute the man.
Really underrated. Dint know much of him. Thanx Sridhar.
From Sridhar for Sridhar… a nice tribute.
H. Sridhar was really underrated and unreported. Even his death was hardly noticed. Thanx for bringing it to a wider forum.
May his soul rest in peace.
rahman himself acknowledges his music sounds so good because of the great technicians he works with.. really a great loss to the indian music industry
he was indeed a genius and Rahman especially has publicly stated many a times – that sridhar was a major force behind the final cut of the sound of his compositions. what a tragic loss to film industry. nice write up bro.
@Sethu – Thanks, dint know the fact u’ve mentioned. And …yes he was a True proffessional to the core.
@All – Thanks guys.
Sorry for my ignorance, little I knew why ARRahman had an extra ‘crispyness’ in his sound, ever since Roja happened, I noticed that! 80’s being the worst in terms of any sort of creativity in Indian film industry, the fresh sound Rahman brought in 90’s was something to celebrate.
Also, I remember watching Dil Se in a very well-configured home theater at a friend’s place. The sound of shakers in the background of song ‘Dil Se’ rotated in 5 speakers surrounding us, while we sat and listened and felt the music. HS must be that much of a perfectionist.
R.I.P HS!
yesterday revisited satya … turned off sound … and it looked average… with sound on it started looking like masterpiece again. then realized the talent of H Sridhar … audio is almost another character … equally good tribute
Hai i also named as sridhar. i like films. i m feels sadly about Mr.H.Sridhar’s death. i think he is one of the genius in sound engineer. i can’t belive his dead. i think A.R.Rahman’s another hand was broken. Hereafter no one can’t to do his audiography records. i will collect his sound designed fims in future. i will keep in mind still i have to gone.