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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

@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

@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

@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