Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Digital Perfomer in the context of television/film scoring and post-production.

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musicman691

Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by musicman691 »

supersonic wrote:Now here is what I call real world input. Thanks! :) I have done close 50 film projects in DP, scoring and mixdown. Since I did the scoring and mixing and all in-house I could always get away with doing it this way. But now that I am teaching at the Science University of Gdansk (Poland) where they have Protools I feel I need to jump into it on order to give them a real world option. DP is practically unknown here in Poland. I begun using it 20 years ago back in France where I studied at SAE and where I worked for many years afterwards. I have PT11 and have used it sparingly so I know a little bit about it. I love the template system they have. Less cumbersome then DP's.
The multi chunk system in DP is a god send and I would not think of actually scoring in anything else. I am planning on showing them this side of it while concentrating on PT for the recording and mixdown since everyone here uses it (either this or Nuendo). Few questions pop up after what you said.

@rockitcity
- Why do they use 4 independent systems? Can't one big system handle it all? Is it for the redundancy's sake?
- what do you mean by sub-path routing? The ability to send to many destinations at the same time?
- DP has destructive recording though I never use it.

@Musicman691
What do you mean by multiple video tracks?

I use VEP pro a lot. I find it more stable with the big projects? Anyone here doing the same?

What surface control do you use?

DP Control IOS - has this broken recently? I have been trying to us it and it keeps crashing.




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Hope you enjoy Poland - I'd like to get to visit the country most of my family is from some day. But on to the subject at hand:

What I meant by the non-dsp version of PT only allowing one video tracks is just that - it only allows one track or line of video in a session. In other words you can't have multiple video lines going in separate tracks. You can have as many audio tracks as you want (up to the limits of the system) of course. What version of PT are they running there? Whatever is is do NOT go for PT12 right now as there's too many issues with the new release and a lot of the promised features aren't in it. If you want to talk more about PT email me off-board and we'll discuss as I'm trying to not go too far here with it.

Depending on the daw in use VEPro 5 can really help with stability (especially in PT). What's nice about VEPro5 is you can keep things loaded in it as you change sessions/projects. You will need the Steinberg dongle to use it though as it won't work with the software elicenser.
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rockitcity
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Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by rockitcity »

- Why do they use 4 independent systems? Can't one big system handle it all? Is it for the redundancy's sake?
- what do you mean by sub-path routing? The ability to send to many destinations at the same time?
- DP has destructive recording though I never use it.
Here's a few quick answers:

Independent systems largely because different people work on different parts of the film, and there are usually 2 mixers on the dub stage. One handles dialog and music, and the other handles BG's, FX, Foley, etc. You can really get into more tracks than one system can comfortably handle. FX can be over 100 tracks routinely (multi-channel BG's, hard FX, Production FX, Foley.) Certainly these tracks are not all playing at once, but there are splits for scene changes and a lot of tracks are cut for choices on stage. So each editor brings his tracks, either via network or actual hard drive and plugs into each system. Also, having independent systems allows one element to go off line for fixes/changes without halting progress on the stage. The record system alone may be recording 24-48 tracks depending on how many stems and print master formats are required.

Sub-paths: In Pro Tools you can assign source tracks to different format tracks. For example, you can assign an LCR dialog stem to a 5.1 print master track. Typically, you would have mono or stereo source units feeding mono, stereo, LCR, and 5.0 stems that in turn feed 5.1 printmasters, LTRT and mono mixes. You can accomplish the same thing in DP, but all the tracks have to be mono and grouped. Do-able, but inconvenient.

I'm unaware of destructive recording in DP. By that I mean that if you have printed stems or print-masters and decide that you want to make a change, (which happens all the time,) you can punch into the existing track (replacing the existing audio) without having to re-consolidate. This also saves a lot of disk space and duplicate files.

Hope that helps.
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Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by djwizprod »

I've mixed two indy features in 5.1 surround, all elements, along with creating all of the Foley, sound design, and scoreing, including additional music editing arranging. Hands down, DP for me is the absolute best solution. If someone sends me a Pro Tools session I convert Pro Tools sessions to AAF and import to DP, automation, track naming etc. all transfers. I've also done multiple shorts, in stereo and surround, including scoring and all audio, and final mix down. Never an issue. The Chunks feature alone is worth more than the cost of any Pro Tools rig to me, being able to copy paste switch and sequence multiple chunks in the same session is invaluable. Pro Tools has nothing that even remotely resembles this. I've also collaborated on major feature film projects doing ADR with the biggest facilities in Hollywood and London, via Source Connect Pro. They all use Pro Tools, but inevitably, there's always a sync issue, or something, on their end, and it's always Pro Tools. You have to have DP running 64bit, on a powerful system, we use towers. We also use Virtual Vtr on a separate laptop to run video externally. In addition, to ease the processing load, we LOVE UAD plugins, and Waves for native processing and surround tools. Bottom line... you can go your own way, and you do not have to use PT just because everyone else does, it helps to have a version on hand, and to know how to use it, but it doesn't need to be your main DAW.
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supersonic
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Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by supersonic »

I also use DP that.


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rockitcity
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Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by rockitcity »

djwizprod wrote:I've mixed two indy features in 5.1 surround, all elements, along with creating all of the Foley, sound design, and scoreing, including additional music editing arranging. Hands down, DP for me is the absolute best solution. If someone sends me a Pro Tools session I convert Pro Tools sessions to AAF and import to DP, automation, track naming etc. all transfers. I've also done multiple shorts, in stereo and surround, including scoring and all audio, and final mix down. Never an issue. The Chunks feature alone is worth more than the cost of any Pro Tools rig to me, being able to copy paste switch and sequence multiple chunks in the same session is invaluable. Pro Tools has nothing that even remotely resembles this. I've also collaborated on major feature film projects doing ADR with the biggest facilities in Hollywood and London, via Source Connect Pro. They all use Pro Tools, but inevitably, there's always a sync issue, or something, on their end, and it's always Pro Tools. You have to have DP running 64bit, on a powerful system, we use towers. We also use Virtual Vtr on a separate laptop to run video externally. In addition, to ease the processing load, we LOVE UAD plugins, and Waves for native processing and surround tools. Bottom line... you can go your own way, and you do not have to use PT just because everyone else does, it helps to have a version on hand, and to know how to use it, but it doesn't need to be your main DAW.
Totally agree it can be done without Pro Tools. However, if you are going to a dub stage for a major TV series or feature film, Pro Tools will be your delivery format.

PT is kind of like the 2" 24 track machine of the 70's and 80's. You could take a tape and pretty much play it anywhere. I was doing independent post in the '80's with a 1" 16 track. Had a difficult time finding a facility that could do laybacks to pro video formats of the time. DP, although certainly more prevelant percentage-wise today than 1" 16 was then, is still somewhat the same situation. It will work fine, it's just not as widely accepted.
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Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by supersonic »

musicman691 wrote: Hope you enjoy Poland - I'd like to get to visit the country most of my family is from some day. But on to the subject at hand:

What I meant by the non-dsp version of PT only allowing one video tracks is just that - it only allows one track or line of video in a session. In other words you can't have multiple video lines going in separate tracks. You can have as many audio tracks as you want (up to the limits of the system) of course. What version of PT are they running there? Whatever is is do NOT go for PT12 right now as there's too many issues with the new release and a lot of the promised features aren't in it. If you want to talk more about PT email me off-board and we'll discuss as I'm trying to not go too far here with it.

Depending on the daw in use VEPro 5 can really help with stability (especially in PT). What's nice about VEPro5 is you can keep things loaded in it as you change sessions/projects. You will need the Steinberg dongle to use it though as it won't work with the software elicenser.
Do let me know if you come. Lets meet up! I live near Gdynia now. Will PM.
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Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by bralston »

While DP is fully capable, all of the dub stages and big rooms that can handle proper film and theatrical mixes are ProTools. And all motion picture mixers and sound designers are 99% Pro Tools. And film sessions to most post houses must be delivered in ProTools by contract. So...for the full motion picture mix...it is ProTools.

The software of ProTools is NOT the only reason. It is the HDX hardware cards and such that are really driving the rigs, processing the audio and making everything stable. Not to mention the staggering amount of plugs the dub stages and sound designers have invested in the Pro Tools ecosystem. That is not a trivial thing to just switch to another format both due to the hardware investments and software/plug-in investments someone has built their business around.
Regards,

Brian Ralston

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musicman691

Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by musicman691 »

bralston wrote:While DP is fully capable, all of the dub stages and big rooms that can handle proper film and theatrical mixes are ProTools. And all motion picture mixers and sound designers are 99% Pro Tools. And film sessions to most post houses must be delivered in ProTools by contract. So...for the full motion picture mix...it is ProTools.

The software of ProTools is NOT the only reason. It is the HDX hardware cards and such that are really driving the rigs, processing the audio and making everything stable. Not to mention the staggering amount of plugs the dub stages and sound designers have invested in the Pro Tools ecosystem. That is not a trivial thing to just switch to another format both due to the hardware investments and software/plug-in investments someone has built their business around.
There's not that many studios that have gone HDX because of the sorry state of affairs with aax-dsp support from plugin vendors. There's plenty of aax64 plugins but not that many aax-dsp. So a lot of studios are still on the old TDM cards; that is they're not using anything beyond PT10.
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Re: Do you mix film soundtrack in PT or DP?

Post by bralston »

musicman691 wrote:
bralston wrote:While DP is fully capable, all of the dub stages and big rooms that can handle proper film and theatrical mixes are ProTools. And all motion picture mixers and sound designers are 99% Pro Tools. And film sessions to most post houses must be delivered in ProTools by contract. So...for the full motion picture mix...it is ProTools.

The software of ProTools is NOT the only reason. It is the HDX hardware cards and such that are really driving the rigs, processing the audio and making everything stable. Not to mention the staggering amount of plugs the dub stages and sound designers have invested in the Pro Tools ecosystem. That is not a trivial thing to just switch to another format both due to the hardware investments and software/plug-in investments someone has built their business around.
There's not that many studios that have gone HDX because of the sorry state of affairs with aax-dsp support from plugin vendors. There's plenty of aax64 plugins but not that many aax-dsp. So a lot of studios are still on the old TDM cards; that is they're not using anything beyond PT10.
True. Doesn't change my reasoning. Then replace HDX with "HDX/HD/TDM system"...same reasoning applies.
Regards,

Brian Ralston

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