Do you deliver 5.1 mixes?

[weslldeckers]

Hi there,
I was wondering if any of you delivers their finished, mixed product in a surround format, in a 5.1 or maybe even a 7.1 mix?

I'm planning on purchasing Steinberg Nuendo, which has a nice add-on module for these kind of things. I believe they have one for Dolby Digital and one for DTS.

Is this a good idea? [*-)]:

[KMuzzey]

I've never had to deliver surround mixes for TV use, and the theatrical scores I did didn't ask for it either -- whether that's because they didn't have the budget, or just didn't need it, I'm not sure. I wonder what the delivery requirements are for the big guns like Hans Zimmer, James Horner, et al?

[mathis]

Well, for the film production coming up I *want* to deliver a surround mix.

But, to answer the Nuendo inquiry, that has nothing to do with Dolby Digital or DTS. That comes way later than what you deliver. You just deliver your mix.

Some things to think about:
- The .1 channel is there for cinematic effects. Unless you have some really shocking deep bass effect, don't use it. The main systems are full-range enough. If you have this deep bass fx, bring it as a seperate track and let the film mixer decide what he wants to do with it.
- The center channel is there for dialog. If you put a lot of music in the center channel you shoot yourself in the foot. If dialog and music can be mixed to different speakers the music can be made louder without disturbing the dialog. So if you use the center channel a lot, this effect is killed. Some mixers will mix a soft mono sum of your stereo mix to the center channel, though, to even it out.

So, unless you discuss your mix with the film mixer before and come up with an agreement, I would deliver 4.0 mixes. Stereo front plus stereo surround.

[Dom]

I deliver music for all films in 5.0 or 5.1. If you just deliver stereo, the dubbing mixer will "up-mix" it to surround which can be nasty: probably less a problem with orchestral music, but with you have tight percussion you may get some delayed effects in the surrounds which can be messy .In my experience even on smaller budget films it's a requirement that music is delivered 5.1 anyway. BTW I have not heard of music mixed in 7.1. 5.1 is definitely enough....

Also it's fairly standard to deliver the music in stems: for example strings, percussion, wind, solo instruments, so this would mean you'd be delivering 4-5 times 5 or 6 tracks. Best all compiled in a ProTools (or Nuendo) session so that if playerd back with all faders at 0dB the music mix will play back as intended.

For actually doing the mix, pretty much any soft - or hardware is capable of doing it. I hardly ever use surround panners etc. All I do is have on each channel a stereo send (for the surrounds) and a mono send (for the centre channel). As long as your software can bounce multiple outputs at once you'll be fine. Also you don't necessarily need surround capable effects - for example you can just use a stereo reverb for your L-R and then a different reverb for your surrounds and maybe a different one again for the centre.

Every dubbing mixer seems to have different preferences for the centre channel, but the ones I have worked with prefer me to make proper use of it - ie if something is in the centre it should come out of the centre channel (not exclusively though). The need for the centre channel comes from in inadequate imaging of the "phantom centre" (something panned central in stereo) in a situation where you have somebody sitting in the cinema front right for example: if it was just phantom centre the sound would appear to come out of the right speaker and not the middle. The center speaker will solve this, and it applies to music too. it's normally not a problem to have dialogue and music coming out of the same speaker. (I totally agree with Mathis regarding LFE (.1) channel though, and definitely discuss your mix with the dubbing mixer before)

Mixing in surround is actually slightly easier than stereo I find, as there is more room for individual sounds etc - you can spread them out more - no need to squash everything into a stereo image. But you may still have to plan for an extra day or 2 - also I will always have a DVD player hooked up to the system, so I can listen to full 5.1 mixes for reference.

Best,
Dom

[mathis]

Well, the center channel is there for *both* reasons. In the end, what you do with the center is a matter of philosophy or taste or whatever.

Delivering mixing stems is a very good idea. But always talk with the dubbing mixer before.

[Dietz]

Maybe these articles help:

-> http://www.grammy.com/PDFs/Recording_Academy/Producers_And_Engineers/5_1_Rec.pdf

-> http://www.grammy.com/PDFs/Recording_Academy/Producers_And_Engineers/DeliveryRecs.pdf

[weslldeckers]

Thanks Dietz! Very interesting articles.
(Now I only have to find that USB wire that I've snatched from my printer again!)

[Carter]

Hans Zimmer tends to mix his scores in surround. But in a weird way.
If you demux AC3 track of any of his movies , like gladiator , thin red line, you'll notice he mixes all the instruments in the front speakers, and he mixes only the strings on surround speakers.

I have a sound example here, it's the demuxed surround speakers coming from gladiator soundtrack, notice there's no brass, percussions, only strings.

http://annecywebtv.free.fr/extrait-thebattle-surround.mp3">http://annecywebtv.free.fr/extrait-thebattle-surround.mp3

I wonder why he does that

[Dietz]

I don't have any first-hand information, but I would bet that even Hans Zimmer delivers several stems for final mixdown, not just a finished 5.1 or 6.1 (or whatever) sum. It's very unlikely that there would be no way back during the final touches of any large-scale production, as far as the positioning and even the balancing of (groups of) instruments is concerned.

IOW - what you hear may be very well _not_ what Hans Zimmer heard during his work.

[michaelprice]

In my experience it's very rare for music delivery on a major feature to be anything other than in multiple stems these days. In the last year or 2 I've seen plenty of dub playback sessions with more tracks than the original mix sessions, so as to leave as much flexibility as possible.

Balancing music within the context of a complex film dub is a challenging process, and having separation means that you can isolate problematic elements and often have the music _louder_ because it can be sculpted around the other elements in the mix.

FWIW when I'm writing myself at home, my protools template has routing in it already set up with separate stems, each with their own reverbs etc, so that you can print a 5.1 mix, 5.1 stems or a stereo folddown - or all 3 at once! It's a bit faffy to do, but once you have, it's a real time saver.

Cheers

michael

[DG]

The big snag in delivering stems is that the orchestration can be destroyed if mixed inappropriately. With some big name composers who don't really use the orchestra except as an expensive sample library this wouldn't be a problem. However with detailed orchestration from someone who really knows how to use the orchestra, stems are not ideal at all. The thought of letting a dubbing mixer loose on an orchestral piece with the complexity of a composer like Korngold makes me shudder with horror.....!

D

[michaelprice]

@DG said:

The big snag in delivering stems is that the orchestration can be destroyed if mixed inappropriately. With some big name composers who don't really use the orchestra except as an expensive sample library this wouldn't be a problem. However with detailed orchestration from someone who really knows how to use the orchestra, stems are not ideal at all. The thought of letting a dubbing mixer loose on an orchestral piece with the complexity of a composer like Korngold makes me shudder with horror.....!

D

I hear you, and of course scores which are recorded orchestrally with no overdubs don't really have stems. LOTR was 5.1 orch/5.0 choir/5.0 vox and extras. But in creating the soundworld of a film you have to remember that the music is only one element, and that the orchestrational balance sounds very different depending on what else is playing. If you play a cue with low basses in when the characters are sat still in a quiet room, the balance would be very different from if they were sat on a rumbling train.

Obviously in an ideal world the composer and music mixer would account for this, but in practice the rest of the sound, foleys, backgrounds etc are finished as late as the music, so the composer and music mixer never actually hear everything in context until the dub.

And fwiw, the majority of great dubbing mixers are much less musically philistine than you may or may not be implying [[;)]]

michael

[DG]

@michaelprice said:

Obviously in an ideal world the composer and music mixer would account for this, but in practice the rest of the sound, foleys, backgrounds etc are finished as late as the music, so the composer and music mixer never actually hear everything in context until the dub.

And fwiw, the majority of great dubbing mixers are much less musically philistine than you may or may not be implying [[;)]]

michael

However, good music mixers will know what sort of level is "correct" so this shouldn't really be a problem.

I never meant to imply that dubbing mixers are philistines, but it must be obvious that they will have much less knowledge of orchestration than a top class orchestrator. In fact this goes for many composers as well [:D]

DG

[michaelprice]

@DG said:

I never meant to imply that dubbing mixers are philistines, but it must be obvious that they will have much less knowledge of orchestration than a top class orchestrator. In fact this goes for many composers as well [:D]

On that, Sir, we can certainly agree!!

It is interesting sometimes, though. I started out as a composer's assistant with no knowledge at all of what happens on a dub stage after we'd delivered our score, and now divide my time between composing (frequently moaning about the final dub levels) and music editing (trying my best to represent the music of other composers).

If I'd have known then what I supposedly know now etc etc

michael