This series of articles is written for the aspiring mix-to-pix mixer coming from the music mixing background (P.A. or CD). Tips and tricks will be given to help you get a hold with the ins-and-outs of audio post-production workflows. The tools are roughly the same, but their use has a slightly different interpretation than in the “music world”. 

As the series progresses you will be guided in how to modify your workflow to a surround sound session, upgrade your listening environment, what to listen for, and everything in between.

In this second installment,  we continue taking one of your most elaborate music mixing sessions and turning it into a film mixing session, looking at what files you will need to deliver, dipped or undipped stems, LtRt or LoRo and a detailed look at the dialogue section of the template.

After viewing the accompanying video in the previous article, you probably noticed that the track count is high, very high, and that is why it is better to be well organized from the start.

You should be appreciating the use of Memory Locations by now. The same type of organization is also applied to the routing of your tracks. In the music industry, all the efforts are placed on the final mix, usually stereo, and if a mix-minus of the vocals is needed, a second pass is executed and all is done. In mix-to-pix, multiple stems and mixes are needed in more than one format:

1. Encoded Left total-Right total (LtRt) or plain Left only-Right only (LoRo)

2. Ambiences are combined with the SFX, foley, and sound design for the stereo and mono stems

3. SFX, Foley and Sound Design are usually delivered as a single stem, but sometimes the Sound Design tracks have their own stem for re-conforming purposes.

A Quick Note about LtRt and LoRo

Both are a stereo downmix of a multi-channel file (stem or mix, 7.1 or 5.1). The main difference is that the LtRt contains the needed phase shifted surround for ProLogic decoders, giving the listener a surround sound experience.

Narration

To continue on our deliverables, in a documentary, it is not unusual to have a narration (voiceover), and this is where the real fun starts. The impact of a narration implies a double delivery of every stems “dipped and undipped”.

When you will be mixing a production, with narration, you will be weaving in and around the narration with your subgroups, not with the individual particles of sounds, hence dipping.

Since the narration is invisible to the audience, we are not limited to being sync to anything on screen. This might come as a surprise to most of you, but not every language is able to express the same idea or concept with the same number of words (syllables). So this is why we have to deliver “dipped and undipped” stems.

The dipped stems to conform to the final mix and for alternate cuts of said documentary, and the undipped stems for the international markets, giving the receiving mixer the latitude to weave in and out of his narration.

And don’t even get me started on what Dolby Atmos deliveries would be! Although my colleague, Alan Sallabank, has good info in part 6 of his excellent series of articles on Dolby Atmos, be warned it is not for the fainted heart.

What You Will Need

As you can imagine there will be a great deal of stress imposed on your computer. I recommend 32 G of RAM (preferably 64) with as many cores you can.

Three hard drives:

1. one for the videos

2. one for your production sounds and

3. one for your prints

Three screens (monitors):

1. one for your TimeLine

2. one for your Mixer and

3. one screen to project the pix.

It might seem like a tall order, but when you have two hundred (200+) tracks with channel strips, half a dozen of mono auxiliaries with processing, around fifteen (15) stereo aux. for reverbs and delays, and close to ten (10) 5.1 aux. – with processing - you will be relieved the whole thing doesn’t crash on you just before you have to deliver… in the middle of the night.

If you have read up to here you are a chosen one, but hold on to your hat. This section explains the routing.

I already mentioned the importance of labelling your tracks and sends and receives, this is where it all comes together. Let’s start with the dialogue.

Dialogue contains different components:

• Production tracks “A roll” (main scene)

• Production tracks “B roll” (complementary scene during A roll)

• ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement)

• Futz tracks (spoken word coming out of a radio, TV, headphones, etc.)

• Walla (group voices for busy scenes, ie. restaurant, police station, etc.)

• Four (4) mono aux. for de-noizing (nzDial1 to 4)

• One mono return for futz processing (iDial)

• One stereo return for a convolution reverb for acoustic aesthetics (rDial)

• One stereo return for an algorithmic reverb for surround magic (rDial02)

• One stereo return for a digital delay for exteriors and dreamlike (dDial)

• One 5.1 return to act as a subgroup (sDial)

It might look complicated, but the signal flow is very straightforward, not simplistic, sophisticated. Designed to be flexible and efficient.

And there you have it: the beginning of a great working template! In the next article, I will present the others stems and their routing.

Stay tuned for the next article addressing the other stems and how they integrate into the final mix. If you have any questions, comments, insights, feel free to respond in the comments section below, I will be more than happy to write you back.