need some emergency advice on mastering film music clips...

[bluedane]

hey guys,
so I am suddenly in a position where I wrote some musi for some film clips and I need to show them to a producer. The music is cool - i think that it's solid enough musically. But it could use a LOT of mastering/post-production - just in the sense that when I write the music, i'm usually not paying super close attention to eq/pannng/reverb etc. I'm mostly watching notes.

However, now that the notes are written, I need to add some polish and I'm a little in the dark. I started last night with setting up the panning to add a little space to it. That worked wonders but all I really did was spread it out a bit, nothing drastic. I sent each instrument to a reverb via a send - a bit of verb on the piano, quite a bit of verb on the strings. That sounded alright (does it sound like i'm re-inventing the wheel, possibly badly?) [:)] I put the whole mix though a slight bit of verb and that seemed to smooth things nicely. I haven't done any eq'ing. (any help here would be awesome - i'm using piano, strings, solo strings, a timpani, some cymbals, and some horns.) For some reason True Tape wasn't making any difference - maybe my routing wasn't right, but I don't see how I could possibly bypass it. I didn't see or hear any difference from 0 db to 24 db usage of True Tape.

Anyway, I have to deliver this in 3 weeks and I still have some composing to do, so it's a little tight but doable.

thanks guys!
-denny-

[Fred Story]

My philosophy on mixing and mastering boils down to three things...

Reference...

Reference...

Reference...

Spend some time listening to great mixes of music in the same style you're working on. Read up on the basics. (Lots of material online.) Then use your ears. Tweak until yours sounds as close to the reference material as possible. It's how you learn to do it. I don't know of any shortcuts. (The best mixers still bring their favorite reference CDs to a mix.)

My advice would be...with only three weeks to go, you might consider bringing in someone with more mixing experience to help you on this project. Then keep referencing...keep tweaking...keep practicing, and you'll be ready for the next gig.

Best of luck,
Fred Story

[KMuzzey]

Through a lot of trial & error I've been able to learn the mastering thing a little better. A couple things that are key (and I won't say anything about EQ'ing cuz i STILL can't figure all that out!):

1) A good reverb is crucial -- a few people on these boards (search old threads) have given tips & tricks that worked well for me. For example, if you're doing orch stuff, use an Altiverb and mic most of the orchestra with close cardioids, but use the "far-omni" setting for percussion or instruments in the back of the orchestra - it adds space.

2) Pan everything to where it would be if you were sitting in the hall facing the stage

3) Don't just pic a default room in your reverb unit or plugin - play with the dry/wet balance. The closer the instrument is to the front, the less reverb it should have relative to the instruments in the back.

4) If you need a quick fix to pump everything up, run your master output through Logic's multipressor and then through the ad-limiter.

Search older threads in this category, because this topic has come up a LOT!

Kerry

[PolarBear]

OT: Don't get Bruce R. on a rave about mastering or mixing [;)]

[rino amato]

@Kerry Muzzey said:

1) A good reverb is crucial -- a few people on these boards (search old threads) have given tips & tricks that worked well for me. For example, if you're doing orch stuff, use an Altiverb and mic most of the orchestra with close cardioids, but use the "far-omni" setting for percussion or instruments in the back of the orchestra - it adds space.

...very helpful that one! Thanks, Kerry! [:D]

[KMuzzey]

Ciao Rino! Come stai??

I can't take credit for that one... someone else on the board suggested it a while back. [:D]

Another good idea is to listen to the user demos, and where the forums offer notes about how they were created, a few of the composers indicated how they used reverb.

[rino amato]

Hi Kerry! I'm fine, grazie!

...oh... ok... thanks to "someone else" too, then...! [:D]

Ciao!

[bluedane]

well, i thickened out the strings with some woodwinds (clarinet and basson) and it sounds great. Panned things around and it sounded better. Anyway, moving along - thanks for the tips. Any more ideas - keep 'em coming!

thanks guys-
-denny-

[maralez]

@Another User said:

4) If you need a quick fix to pump everything up, run your master output through Logic's multipressor and then through the ad-limiter.

What about dynamic? I think that the multipressor will kill all the dynamics of the mix.

[Nick Batzdorf]

I'd be *very* careful with Logic's mastering limiter. Without wanting to dis Logic's plug-ins in general, which are very impressive, the Waves L2-alike sounded like ass the one time I tried it.

[KMuzzey]

@Another User said:

4) If you need a quick fix to pump everything up, run your master output through Logic's multipressor and then through the ad-limiter.

What about dynamic? I think that the multipressor will kill all the dynamics of the mix.

That's true, but what I learned recently is that if you're mastering for a film, your score -- your dynamically-rich, meticulously mastered, perfectly-balanced-volume score -- is going to get placed next to other songs in the movie that are so compressed & whose mixes are so hot, that your score will get buried. And that's only if they don't already get buried by SFX and voices and such in the movie. When you're doing TV or film, I think it's important to make the mixes loud, otherwise they'll disappear TOO much into the background. And while score is supposed to be in the background, you're still supposed to be able to hear it! And there's nothing more discouraging than sitting in a theatre watching your movie, and your favorite cue is about to come up, and when it does, you can't hear it because it got buried under dialog or comes right after a tightly-compressed pop song. Oh wait, there IS something more discouraging -- when your favorite cue gets sliced up by a music editor and they never told you, and you find out when you're watching the movie.

OK, deep breath... i'm not bitter... i'm NOT bitter....

[:D]

[Dietz]

While I agree with every line Kerry wrote, one should add that this is _exactly_ the point where virtual orchestration really shines: you can do dynamics with colours and harmonics, without actually lowering the volume. One can play with psychoacoustics and perceived loudness opposed to the old limits of possible headroom and/or high noise-floor.

Compression without a compressor, to coin a phrase. ;-]

/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library

[maralez]

But what about not music for the films, but symphonic or classic music at all?
I mean - must i use multicompressors on the master section?
And limiters?

[Dietz]

No, you don't _have_ to. Most of the time it's a matter of taste to add some artificial "strength" to very silent passages. But our ears got very used to this kind of recorded aesthetics.

The only scenario where you _should_ use dynamic processing is a case where you would run into distortion due to some untamed signal peaks. Here, a limiter is your friend! ;-]

/Dietz

[Piernick]

Ciao Rino,
i'm agree with Kerry about the use of reverb.
If you check the user demo page you can find some interesting cue, very well recorded.

Ciao

Piernicola
italy

[maralez]

Thank you!