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Audio-final sound mix

So I just finished editing my first short film and when I finally burned it to DVD, many of the audio tracks were muffled. I was told this was because some of my audio tracks were mono and that to fix this I needed to copy every mono track and paste it with the 'pan' dragged over to the other side, for full stereo effect, one copy on the left and the other copy on the right. This makes sense but I'm wondering if I literally have to do it for EVERY audio track in my project. My sound guy recorded to two tracks, one for the lavelier and one for the boom, and then mixed it together as we recorded. Does that mean I have to break apart this mix and give stereo tracks for both mic recordings? A right and a left for the lav, and the same for the boom? This seems a little laborious and I'm wondering why you couldn't just record to stero for each mic in the first place..
 
I have never had a problem with tracks sounding muffled just because they were mono.

You may have a phase problem due to using the lav and boom tracks simultaneously. Does anything else in the mix - ambiences, Foley, music - sound muffled as well?

Were the original audio tracks associated with the picture active as well as the finished mix audio when you burned the DVD?

More information on how the everything was done - software, imports, exports, process, etc. - would be a big help with diagnosing the problem.

BTW, I use the lavs or the boom, I never use both at the same time.
 
sorry, left out some important info: The dvd plays fine on my computer, an IMac, where both mono and stereo tracks are clearily audible. But when I played it on my HD TV or my friend's 4x3 flat screen TV (both with somewhat older DVD players), some of the mono tracks didn't seem to play at all.
During shooting, some of the audio was recorded with the onboard mic, but that was stereo and is fine. My sound guy recorded to two tracks, with a lav and a boom, and I believe he mixed in between the two mics during recording. I also added some sound effects in post, and some of these were in mono but still played fine on the DVD when played on the TV, so its the mono tracks my sound guy recorded that are the problem.

It seems logical to think that mix between the boom and lav was messed up during production, but it sounds fine on my computer..
Right now I'm in the process of converting all mono tracks to stereo so that I KNOW they will be heard regardless of what system the dvd is played on.

I use FCP 6 (for audio too) and use Compressor and DVD Studio Pro for output (latest updates on everything). Also, I compressed the file into separate audio and video files, MPEG 2 elementary stream and AC3 audio file, and used both of these when I burned to DVD.

Hope this helps...
 
Okay, figured out some important stuff. So when I play the DVD on my HDTV or my friends flat screen TV, it plays mono, and one of the stereo tracks is completely left out. But when I play a regular, store-bought DVD on those same TVs, it plays in stereo. So it's my DVD that is the problem. But, on my computer my DVD plays in stereo!
Any ideas? Is converting every mono track to stereo possibly bad for the sound (ambient noise?)
 
Did you create both a 5.1 and stereo track on your DVD? It's possible that your iMac is playing the stereo track but the dvd players are playing the 5.1 track, which would mean that mono information that's bussed to the center channel won't be heard if the home theater systems you're checking it on are set up to play the 5.1 audio but there are only L/R stereo speakers hooked up to them. This would cause the stereo tracks to be audible and the mono tracks to be inaudible, and muffled sounding mono tracks may be tracks that are panned stereo just a bit.

Also, to second Alcove Audio, don't ever mix your boom and lav mics together at the same time, that will cause phasing problems, but it doesn't sound like that's what we're dealing with here.

And you can pan mono tracks to L/R outputs in FCP, you don't have to duplicate your tracks and pan each one L/R. Just select the clip in the viewer and slide the panner to the center. Duplicating mono tracks doesn't make them stereo, it just makes two identical mono tracks. You aren't creating any true stereo information. Dialogue is generally recorded mono and then mostly panned to the center during the mix (you may pan it left or right if, say, there is off-screen dialogue or something). Secondly, your boom and lav are both mono microphones, not stereo, so there is no real stereo capability in your dialogue recording.
 
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