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I am three years into a somewhat massive project which I have produced, directed, written, filmed, scored and engineered. Never having done any of this before it has been somewhat of a huge learning experience but its nearly there and people who have seen it say the results are quite impressive. There is no dialogue and its more of a feature length music video rather than a film. Its all high def and the final output will be to blue ray probably in about a year. I have to learn to animate a dragon first! When finished I will have 11 pieces of music which I am mixing to 5.1. Most of these are finished and I want to weld them together to form the soundtrack which can then be my final template for all the edits. How would you recommend I go about it. Should I output the 5.1 tracks to individual channels first or use them as they are as a series of sequences. There will be some transitional audio and I expect the occasional rewrite. My computers have plenty of grunt and DP runs like a dream.

My suggestion would be to get with someone experienced in 5.1 mixing. It ain't just placing sound in the field as there are highly technical concerns on levels, placement, etc. You might be successful doing it by the seat of your pants since you seem happy with your results writing, producing, directing and composing this work. Then again, you might be reinventing the square wheel and when you get it into a 5.1 setting, find things are not what you thought they would be.

That said, I've also been in situations where a perfectly good 5.1 mix was destroyed (obliterated might be a better term) by "top end" pros from Dolby and mixing studios. The final mix (to 35mm in a feature) was a muted, unusable mono mix that was an embarrassment and which probably resulted in a perfectly good film to not even make it to DVD release.

I guess it all depends on how you plan on using the final project. If you plan on selling it, then you want to learn everything there is to learn about 5.1 BEFORE mixing. If it's for your living room, then do what sounds good.

You might be successful doing it by the seat of your pants.

I do everything by the seat of my pants. It's seems to have worked so far, I retired when I hit fifty. I have been having fun ever since. I will keep your suggestions in mind but its been fun working out the how to's. My ears tell me when things work or mostly when they don't. Nothing is that hard if you spend enough time on it. I am open to any concrete suggestions.

The project will premier in a theater but I have unlimited access to it and can adjust the mix accordingly. Otherwise it will be put out on blue ray and I can test using different flavors of home theater set ups. I get regular requests to please hurry up and finish it.

I have always felt that square wheels would give a much more interesting ride

You're preaching to the chorus. I'm mostly self taught and agree, seat of your pants is a great way to go - but one can get road burns every so often.

As far as doing this in theaters, if you have the ability to mix in the theater, THAT is the way to go, IMO. What might sound great in a home studio will sound different on a sound stage or "real live the-a-ter."

As for retirement, that will never be an option for me. I love what I do for a living and even if I did "retire" I'd still be doing it. Nah, I want to 'kick' "in process" making music - just not any time soon hopefully.

Well in that case I can work with a stereo mix until I've learnt how to do the 5.1 stuff. I need to do that anyway for people who don't have surround sound. It can't be that hard and I don't suppose it will take a year to figure it out.

Being retired is brilliant you can still do the same stuff but there is no difficult clients, deadlines or other silly constraints to worry about. You can do just what you like when you like. It has boosted my creativity way off the scale. If it takes a while to learn something new - it takes a while...

maybe you can start by playing some other 5p1 stuff from reputable origins on your system?

look at the meters very closely - whats channels are moving in what scenes..

if you are in a properly calibrated room I'm of the opinion its easier to mix in 5p1 than stereo - more space! the harder bit perhaps is making sure the 5p1 you made sounds the same in stereo!

the dolby specs are published on line - get an SPL meter - check your room - check other movies there after u check your calibration..

therayman wrote:Well in that case I can work with a stereo mix until I've learnt how to do the 5.1 stuff. I need to do that anyway for people who don't have surround sound. It can't be that hard and I don't suppose it will take a year to figure it out.

Being retired is brilliant you can still do the same stuff but there is no difficult clients, deadlines or other silly constraints to worry about. You can do just what you like when you like. It has boosted my creativity way off the scale. If it takes a while to learn something new - it takes a while...

my missus is from welly - actually I checked out park road last time I was there- great coffee machines! ( and the rest!!!)

martian wrote:maybe you can start by playing some other 5p1 stuff from reputable origins on your system?

look at the meters very closely - whats channels are moving in what scenes..

if you are in a properly calibrated room I'm of the opinion its easier to mix in 5p1 than stereo - more space! the harder bit perhaps is making sure the 5p1 you made sounds the same in stereo!

the dolby specs are published on line - get an SPL meter - check your room - check other movies there after u check your calibration..

The room I have is good and is a pro setup. I did refer to the Dolby specs and test the room when I was setting it up. It sure beats the studios I had in London which cost ten times as much. I agree 5.1 seems much easier than stereo - far more space to work in. The blue ray stuff I have tested looks much the same as my own mixes on the meters. The only thing I have noticed is that the reverb in the rear speakers is generally less pronounced. I am moving from DP to Windows for the main edit and find that my mix levels are generally a bit too high. Nothing hard to fix.

is the blu ray using AC3 or uncompressed wav?

I was lucky enough to do an AB comparison of Dolby, DTS and SDDS side by side - and dolby was definitely the most degrading! some details definitely lost there.

What kind of audio options are you going to go for on the BR? are you going to tweak a stereo mix as well - DVD / broadcast? We usually required to give an Lt Rt - matrix encoded..


mixing in a theater is cool - especially if it's THE theater it will play back in - dont forget it may be a bit "damper" once you fill it with bodies...

If you have a drill and a couple of extra speakers you could go beyond EX!!!