Music Requirements

[AudioPostExpert]

Due to cheap technology, there are a lot more people these days creating music but as the music business is in decline and making any money is so difficult, many turn to the film/tv scene. There are two types of composers working or trying to work in this field, people who compose films scores and people who compose library music. While there are many similarities between the two, there are also significant differences and different skill sets required. Ultimately though both are creating music for use in film/tv and there are technical and usage requirements which need to be fulfilled which are different from the almost complete lack of requirements in the music business. I'm creating this post to help to avoid the issues which seem to be increasing due to lower budgets causing producers and directors to hire less experienced composers and due to the internet allowing anyone to offer their music for use in film/tv.

Delivery: The audio format should be: 24bit 48kFs/S wav or aiff, with a maximum peak level of -6dBFS. If you're working with a 32bit (or higher) mix engine you do not need to dither to 24bit. If for some obscure reason you do need to dither, use a standard TDPF dither, never a noise shaped dither. If you're thinking of creating 5.1 music, don't! By all means work with surround (it's a growing market) but the .1 is for low frequency effects, not for music. So 5.0 is OK and 4.0 might be even better as it leaves the centre channel free for dialogue and Foley. If you are hired as a composer for a surround film/tv program, you will need to discuss with the director and the supervising sound editor or the re-recording mixer which channel format to use for the music.

Usage Considerations: With the exception of the end credits, the vast majority of the time your music will not be the most important audio element, the dialogue will and frequently some of the SFX or Foley will take precedence as well. If your music gets in the way of the dialogue I (the re-recording mixer) will get rid of it! I'll lower the level of your music, I'll EQ it to reduce the frequencies interfering with the dialogue or I might even add reverb to it, commonly I'll use a combination of these. In extreme situations I may have to edit the music out in part or entirely! If you're a hired composer you have the benefit of being able to orchestrate around the dialogue but even as a library music composer there are certain things you can do to help keep your music sounding as you intended and make the Director's and Re-recording mixer's job easier. For example, make your music mixes wetter than you otherwise would and use compression sparingly and only for musical reasons, not just to make your music louder (as you would in the music business).

Check Your Mix:

• Check for reasonably good mono compatibility and very good stereo compatibility if you're working in surround.
• Check your mix still works well at low levels. If the re-recording mixer has to lower the level of your music significantly to accommodate other audio elements, the perception of your mix will change. The most obvious change will be that the bass frequencies in your mix will seem quieter or will disappear entirely.
• Check your mix still works well at high levels. Dubbing theatre systems are incredibly revealing, you need to make sure there is nothing in your mix which will make you look incompetent. Editing clicks and spurious noises completely invisible in an average music studio may suddenly become incredibly obvious in the dubbing theatre (and of course in the cinema or on a good home cinema system).
• Check the bass! Cinemas often have subs which go down as low as 12Hz, even home cinema systems commonly go as low as 18-20Hz. Near field monitors and most other home and studio speakers usually can't reproduce much below 40Hz, so you really you need to use full range speakers. If budget doesn't allow for full range speakers, your only workaround is to check your mix on a good set of headphones (with a wide frequency response) and check to see if you can find anything untoward in a spectrum analyser.

If there is much interest in the information in this post, I might add to it as useful points to remember spring to mind.

G

 

[FernandoAndre]

AudioPost, sorry if I'm asking something that you already explained, but my english is not so good yet.

I learned this rule of "finish the audio in -6dB" but I do not really understand it. I mean, when I set the audio to -6dB in the software, it seems very low. I can not hear it clear, and my speakers are at a normal volume (the same volume that I use to watch videos and movies in general). What is the point in set the audio to -6dB? Is it good for internet hosted movies or it is a technique to professional cinema audio only?

 

[AudioPostExpert]

Can't argue with that, in that is great for people working in a Dolby approved dubbing theatre...but how many indie filmmakers on here are working in such an environment? I imagine many are working in a small edit suite, or living room, or even a converted bedroom.

I realise this, the reason I referred to a Dolby approved dubbing theatre is because that is the internationally recognised reference point. It's impossible to say what a small edit suite or living room should be calibrated to because there are far too many variables: The exact room dimensions, the monitoring system used, how the monitoring system is positioned and the acoustic properties of the room. The correct calibration could be anywhere from 72dBSPL(C) to 85dBSPL(C).

Fortunately, the composer doesn't need to have an accurately calibrated room, it just needs to be "in the ball park" and for many in a small edit room or bedroom that is *likely* to be somewhere around 76dBSPL(C). 79dBSPL(C) is often used to calibrate professional TV mix rooms but TV broadcast has very different specifications to cinema.

Unfortunately, the Re-recording Mixer (or whoever is acting as the Re-recording Mixer) does need to have an accurately calibrated mix room. For example, my room is not Dolby approved but I've spent many tens of thousands of dollars to get it very close to Dolby specifications but that is still short of the many hundreds of thousands or more that some of the big Dolby dubbing theatres spend on monitoring and room response. So, given a particularly important theatrical release, even with my room and experience, I would still want to spend a couple of hours in a Dolby approved room to check my mix. The indy filmmaker with no budget is between a rock and a hard place, there really is no solution other than trusting to blind luck and this is why so many indy films get rejected by festivals. There are only 3 feasible solutions:

1. Allocate some budget for someone like me or Alcove, which will drastically improve the chances of getting the film accepted.
2. Allocate a budget for someone like me or Alcove and an additional budget for a few hours to check the mix in a Dolby dubbing theatre which virtually guarantees getting the film accepted or
3. Allocate a really serious budget to mix in a Dolby dubbing theatre and be assured of getting acceptance. Baring in mind that a Dolby dubbing theatre will cost roughly $2,000 - $5,000 per day and often require a minimum of 1 day per reel for mixing and 1 day for mastering.

Of course, if you are working in 5.1 and distribution is 35mm film, you have no choice but to use solution 3.

ps: In order to calibrate at all, they would need a pink noise generator of some sort and an SPL meter.

Actually you don't need a pink noise generator, calibrated pink noise test files are more accurate and can be downloaded free (Tomlinson Holman Pink Noise Zip File) and you only need a cheap radio shack SPL meter set to C weighting and Slow response. Bare in mind this is the rough way of calibrating a room, suitable for a composer but not a re-recording room.

G

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I learned this rule of "finish the audio in -6dB" but I do not really understand it. I mean, when I set the audio to -6dB in the software, it seems very low. I can not hear it clear, and my speakers are at a normal volume (the same volume that I use to watch videos and movies in general). What is the point in set the audio to -6dB? Is it good for internet hosted movies or it is a technique to professional cinema audio only?

The rule of not peaking higher than -6dB is for music, when you are delivering that music to a re-recording mixer (or whoever is acting as the re-recording mixer) and it always applies, regardless of the distribution or broadcast type. If we are talking about the peak level of the final sound mix (rather than just a music delivery mix), then the answer is more complex and depends on the distribution or broadcast type. The internet has no audio specifications, so you can have almost whatever peak level you want. Cinema also doesn't have many specifications as such because cinema sound has been controlled by the Dolby dubbing theatres, this makes it generally more difficult to mix for cinema than for TV broadcast even though TV usually has very strict audio specifications. In short, you cannot compare TV sound levels with cinema sound levels, you cannot compare commercially released music levels with either TV or cinema levels and you cannot compare internet sound levels with anything!

If you are creating music for an indy film and giving that music to the editor or re-recording mixer stick to the -6dBFS peak levels and turn up your monitoring system so that it sounds quite loud.

G

 

[wheatgrinder]

How about some practical advice for the $0 - $1000 budgets that "some" of us live in

I think its fair to say that a majority of the folks on indietalk live in that "zone of shabbiness" and could use some real help with this.

I have monitors, I have ears.. help me get the BEST final mix that I can.

Can I calibrate my near field environment somehow? Your hinting at it with the pink noise files and the Radio Shack SPL meter. can you elaborate on that?

When I first started on these boards I played a game with Alcove.. I called it "What Would Alcove Do" it goes like this..

Your on deserted island and you have to finalize the audio on your own short film.
You have the following resources:

Powered monitors
DAW software (cubase 6)
Computer
Internet
$50 to spend

thats it.. go!

 

[rocksure]

How about some practical advice for the $0 - $1000 budgets that "some" of us live in

I think its fair to say that a majority of the folks on indietalk live in that "zone of shabbiness" and could use some real help with this.

I have monitors, I have ears.. help me get the BEST final mix that I can.

Can I calibrate my near field environment somehow? Your hinting at it with the pink noise files and the Radio Shack SPL meter. can you elaborate on that?

When I first started on these boards I played a game with Alcove.. I called it "What Would Alcove Do" it goes like this..

Your on deserted island and you have to finalize the audio on your own short film.
You have the following resources:

Powered monitors
DAW software (cubase 6)
Computer
Internet
$50 to spend

thats it.. go!

This tutorial that I wrote last year on calibration of audio playback levels may help you with that aspect of your question. It tells you how to do it.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

How about some practical advice for the $0 - $1000 budgets that "some" of us live in
I think its fair to say that a majority of the folks on indietalk live in that "zone of shabbiness" and could use some real help with this.
I have monitors, I have ears.. help me get the BEST final mix that I can.
Can I calibrate my near field environment somehow? Your hinting at it with the pink noise files and the Radio Shack SPL meter. can you elaborate on that?

The quality of a mix is relative to what you are mixing for. For example, a high quality cinema mix played on a laptop will sound terrible, much worse than a mediocre quality mix designed for laptop playback. So what do you mean by the "BEST final mix that I can", best final mix for what? If you're talking about a final mix for distribution on youtube, then as I mentioned, there are no audio standards or conventions, so there's not much point in calibrating your system. You just set your system to sound loud somewhere before you reach 0dBFS.

Rule 1 of creating a final mix is being able to hear what it is you're mixing, and this is far more difficult than it might appear. The problem is that the quality of your monitors are only half the story, because the acoustics of the room completely define the monitor's performance. The sound from your monitors bounces off the various surfaces of your room and interacts with the sound coming out of your monitors, effectively causing significant changes in the frequency response of the monitors. So how do you know if what you are mixing is what is actually coming out of your speakers or if it's the just the effect of your room acoustics? If it's the latter then your mix is likely to sound radically different in any other room. I would far rather have $1,000 monitors in a properly acoustically treated room than $5,000 monitors in an untreated room. So if your hypothetical budget of $1,000 is for upgrading an existing system, I would spend all of it acoustically treating the room! It doesn't matter what other equipment you've got, how much skill, natural ability or experience you've got, if you can't accurately hear what you're mixing it's just down to blind luck if you end up with anything usable. It's like trying to do colour grading on a black and white TV.

If you're talking about a $1,000 to buy an entire system for audio post, to be honest it doesn't really matter what you buy, you'd be best off getting the software and speakers you're most comfortable with. Even with a top class system in a perfectly treated room, there are problems with a sound mix destined for the internet because your mix could be played back on anything from a multi-thousand dollar home cinema system to an iPhone and making it sound good on an iPhone will compromise the sound when played on a quality home system and vice versa.

For a cinema, say for a festival or for TV, it just can't be done with a $1,000 budget, 10 times that budget wouldn't get you in the ball park, realistically you are looking at 100 to 1000 times that budget. I understand that you don't have that budget but you're asking me which monochrome TV you should buy to colour grade on because you don't have the budget for a colour monitor.

G

 

[AudioPostExpert]

This tutorial that I wrote last year on calibration of audio playback levels may help you with that aspect of your question. It tells you how to do it.

Rocksure:- Although generally useful, there are quite a few errors in your guide, particularly in your glossary of terms, you might want to double check it.

G

 

[rocksure]

Rocksure:- Although generally useful, there are quite a few errors in your guide, particularly in your glossary of terms, you might want to double check it.

G

I was pretty sure you would look to find faults in it. It's only a basic guide. So.......be specific...what are the faults?....you would be the first person to point any out. If there are infact errors in it, then I will correct them. So what are they?

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I was pretty sure you would look to find faults in it. It's only a basic guide. So.......be specific...what are the faults?....you would be the first person to point any out. If there are infact errors in it, then I will correct them. So what are they?

OK, there are a few minor and some not so minor errors. It should be noted that pink noise should only be used for the calibration of full range monitoring systems. For nearfield monitors and all other types of home or studio speakers which are not full range, compensated bandlimited pink noise should be used for calibration. People using the wrong type of pink noise for calibration constantly causes mis-matched levels and audio problems!

dBC:- You've used the term dBC and correctly defined it as decibels relative to the carrier but this dBC is unrelated to the dB(C) scale used in acoustics and the calibrating of rooms. dB(C) is the abbreviation often used for dBSPL "C" weighted. The A, B and C SPL weightings are used to modify the SPL scale to compensate for the changing frequency response of human hearing at different amplitudes (equal loudness contours).

Pink Noise:- "Each octave has the same amount of energy as the ones adjacent , and decreases at the rate of 3dB per octave." Either it's the same energy or it decreases at 3dB per octave, can't be both. I think you mean that each octave has the same energy, which means the power of any given bandwidth reduces by 3dB per octave, not the power of every octave (which is always the same).

SPL:- "SPL is usually measured at 1 watt and 1 meter in front of a speaker." This is not the definition of SPL but the definition of how the baseline response of speakers is measured in an anechoic chamber. SPL is the logarithmic scale used to measure sound pressure deviation from ambient atmospheric pressure referenced against 20micro-pascals @ 1kHz.

Also dBFS, is the logarithmic scale used to measure digital sample values relative to full scale (all bits set to "1"). It doesn't really measure amplitude of the waveform as the amplitude of the waveform often falls outside the sample values.

Lastly, you mentioned -20dBFS as the reference point for both cinema and TV, this is only true in North America. In Europe -18dBFS is the calibration reference for TV relative to +4dBu (0VU) and SPL level and weighting varies depending on stereo or multi-channel formats.

G

 

[wheatgrinder]

Ah, you did not play my game.

The budget for improving my mixing situation was $50.

The $0 - $1000 was and example of a common production range for some of us ultra low\no budget folks.

Your comment on monochrome monitor to cc on is a good one.. I like it.. you COULD CC on a monochrome monitor if you were using it to show you the video SCOPES from Premiere\On Location and were CC'ing by "wire" so to speak. Sure nobody sane would do such a thing.. unless they had to!

I appreciate your info rich approach and know that we are getting a bargain, but telling me that I anything less then a $10,000 investment is not worth bothering to calibrate my mixing situation is disappointing and lacking inventiveness

I had hoped you'd offer something like "check your computers mixer outputs are all set to "0" or something like that , or how about "Find some reference materials and A\B with your mix"...

Seeking practical fixes that ANYONE can make to IMPROVE their setup, far from perfect, but improvement is improvement. Make sense?

 

[rocksure]

OK, there are a few minor and some not so minor errors. It should be noted that pink noise should only be used for the calibration of full range monitoring systems. For nearfield monitors and all other types of home or studio speakers which are not full range, compensated bandlimited pink noise should be used for calibration. People using the wrong type of pink noise for calibration constantly causes mis-matched levels and audio problems!

dBC:- You've used the term dBC and correctly defined it as decibels relative to the carrier but this dBC is unrelated to the dB(C) scale used in acoustics and the calibrating of rooms. dB(C) is the abbreviation often used for dBSPL "C" weighted. The A, B and C SPL weightings are used to modify the SPL scale to compensate for the changing frequency response of human hearing at different amplitudes (equal loudness contours).

Pink Noise:- "Each octave has the same amount of energy as the ones adjacent , and decreases at the rate of 3dB per octave." Either it's the same energy or it decreases at 3dB per octave, can't be both. I think you mean that each octave has the same energy, which means the power of any given bandwidth reduces by 3dB per octave, not the power of every octave (which is always the same).

SPL:- "SPL is usually measured at 1 watt and 1 meter in front of a speaker." This is not the definition of SPL but the definition of how the baseline response of speakers is measured in an anechoic chamber. SPL is the logarithmic scale used to measure sound pressure deviation from ambient atmospheric pressure referenced against 20micro-pascals @ 1kHz.

Also dBFS, is the logarithmic scale used to measure digital sample values relative to full scale (all bits set to "1"). It doesn't really measure amplitude of the waveform as the amplitude of the waveform often falls outside the sample values.

Lastly, you mentioned -20dBFS as the reference point for both cinema and TV, this is only true in North America. In Europe -18dBFS is the calibration reference for TV relative to +4dBu (0VU) and SPL level and weighting varies depending on stereo or multi-channel formats.

G

Ok fair comments.

a) So in relation to dBC I should probably have 2 definitions to avoid confusion ...one for dB(C) and one for dBc. Is that what you would suggest?

b) Pink Noise.....yes I see where my wording was a bit clumsy. I hadn't noticed that before. I will rephrase it.

c) SPL. Ok I will expand the description to cover more than just how it's measured in relation to a speaker.

d) As for reference levels of -20dBFS v -18dBFS...actually -18 applies here in NZ rather than -20 as well as Europe, and it's actually at that figure that I calibrated my listening environment.....so point being I should have included that in there as well, so I will.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I appreciate your info rich approach and know that we are getting a bargain, but telling me that I anything less then a $10,000 investment is not worth bothering to calibrate my mixing situation is disappointing and lacking inventiveness

"disappointing", yes, I suppose so, in the same way that I'm disappointed that I can't buy a new Ferrari 428 for $20,000. "Lacking inventiveness", hmm, maybe. If you're inventive enough to workout how I can buy a new Ferrari 428 for $20,000, please let me know!!!

Basic speaker design and cinema/mix room construction and acoustics have barely changed in 20 years and have gone up in cost with inflation rather than coming down in cost because of advances in technology. I can understand how this would be "disappointing" for those who expect technology to provide more power for less money but what can I say, that's the way it is. Technology has had a significant effect on the recording and mixing equipment used in mix rooms but the acoustic environments and monitoring systems are at least as expensive as they ever were.

I had hoped you'd offer something like "check your computers mixer outputs are all set to "0" or something like that , or how about "Find some reference materials and A\B with your mix"...

I could have suggested setting the computer outputs to zero, I took that for granted I'm afraid, my bad! Getting reference materials is not so simple though. There is no reference for the internet because there are no set standards. For film, you can't just go out and buy a DVD or BluRay because many of them have been remixed. How do you know if the DVD you're using as reference is the original film mix or a remixed version designed for home use?

G

 

[AudioPostExpert]

a) So in relation to dBC I should probably have 2 definitions to avoid confusion ...one for dB(C) and one for dBc. Is that what you would suggest?

You only need one definition but it should be the definition for dB(C) not dBC. To be honest I've very rarely come across dBC, I think it's used to measure phase variations in analogue broadcast carrier signals but I could be wrong, I've never troubled myself with it much because it's not really related audio engineering. It's more of interest to broadcast engineers I think.

d) As for reference levels of -20dBFS v -18dBFS...actually -18 applies here in NZ rather than -20 as well as Europe, and it's actually at that figure that I calibrated my listening environment.....so point being I should have included that in there as well, so I will.

Unfortunately, it's starting to get more complicated with the advent of the EBU R128 TV spec, although at least it will be standardised throughout Europe (and who ever else adopts it). America is changing over to the ATSC A85 spec which is the same as the old -20dBFS spec (as far as calibration is concerned) and compensates in the delivery specs for stereo downmix levels, which is much more sensible than having to recalibrate the mix room between stereo and 5.1 (both of which are different to film stereo or 5.1). If I were you I'd leave your guide at film calibration and avoid TV calibration entirely, it's a bit of a nightmare at the moment as some broadcasters have switched over to the new standards and others are still on the old disparate standards and some don't have a clue what they are doing and are mixing new and old standards in the same delivery specs!

One thing I would advise though is to suggest the bandlimited (500Hz-2kHz) pink rather than the standard 20/20k pink. So many people use the 20/20k pink for the wrong types of speakers and calibrate their rooms out by 4dB or more. I've even been to commercial mix rooms who have fallen into this trap.

G

 

[rocksure]

Unfortunately, it's starting to get more complicated with the advent of the EBU R128 TV spec, although at least it will be standardised throughout Europe (and who ever else adopts it). America is changing over to the ATSC A85 spec which is the same as the old -20dBFS spec (as far as calibration is concerned) and compensates in the delivery specs for stereo downmix levels, which is much more sensible than having to recalibrate the mix room between stereo and 5.1 (both of which are different to film stereo or 5.1). If I were you I'd leave your guide at film calibration and avoid TV calibration entirely, it's a bit of a nightmare at the moment as some broadcasters have switched over to the new standards and others are still on the old disparate standards and some don't have a clue what they are doing and are mixing new and old standards in the same delivery specs!

G

The whole dialnorm thing and the requirement to use a Dolby LM100 for TV levels hasn't hit NZ yet. Hopefully it's a bit better sorted out before it does. Our delivery specs are still a bit more lenient. The Waves WLM meter looks like a better option for this than the download Dolby meter as far as price goes. I haven't done any surround mixing for TV, only stereo so can't really comment on that.


As for my article...I am rewording some of it now to improve it. Thanks for the tips.

 

[rocksure]

Ok..the revised and improved tutorial for Calibration of Audio Playback Levels is now up.

 

[Alcove Audio]

AudioPostExpert and rocksure...

As interesting and informative as the posts have been, you're trying to teach doctoral physics to third graders. They may be smart and precocious and talented, but there isn't any real interest or application. I know that we three hang out at a few of the same more audio specific forums, and these discussions are more suited to those venues.

Wheat - As I have mentioned quite often audio post is the only film post discipline the requires - repeat, requires - specifically designed rooms and specialty equipment. Sonic isolation, sound treatment and precise audio monitoring are expensive. By the time you factor in how much it costs to build and maintain an audio post facility we small independent guys work for peanuts.

Now, to answer your question:

The $0 - $1000 was an example of a common production range for some of us ultra low\no budget folks.

You have to stop thinking in the short term or a by-the-project budget.

The first thing is your audio monitoring space. The first thing you need is balance. Both of your speakers should be equidistant from all walls, so your work space needs to be in the center of a wall or in a corner. The speakers should be at ear level. The speakers and your head should form an equilateral triangle.

The room needs to be as sonically dead as possible. Lots of carpeting, curtains, chairs, couches, beds and anything else that will soak up reflections will be a help.

You will need a decent audio interface. I personally prefer firewire, but there are some okay USB interfaces out there as well. Figure $250 to $500.

You will need some decent speakers. About $400 to $800.

If you want to really do the job correctly you will need a decent DAW can handle large track counts; about $250 to $500. You will also need a few audio post specific plug-ins - an IR/Convolution reverb and Vocalign. That's about another $1,000.

Once you have all of that you need to spend many, many hours listening to films you know and films you don't in that specific listening environment so you have a point of comparison for your own mixes; you are essentially training your ears.

Beyond that you will need mics for ADR, VO and Foley and the space to do all those things.

This is by no means comprehensive, and falls far short of my facility; however, my space falls far short of A.P.E.s place - I'm an editor, talent and Foley guy, not a rerecording mixer.

Just getting the room "balanced" as I previously mentioned will be a challenge for most low/no/mini/micro indie types, much less expending the funds for and interface and speakers. But you did ask....

 

[rocksure]

This is by no means comprehensive, and falls far short of my facility; however, my space falls far short of A.P.E.s place - I'm an editor, talent and Foley guy, not a rerecording mixer.

Just getting the room "balanced" as I previously mentioned will be a challenge for most low/no/mini/micro indie types, much less expending the funds for and interface and speakers. But you did ask....

..and my humble studio falls far short of the "ideal" too. I mostly work with music recording and musicians, along with sound effects creation, voice overs, and a bit of post production for TV etc.

Nice picture. It could perhaps be a basis for you to explain to them a little bit about placing basic minimum sound treatment, ie: mirror positions, above head etc...if you get a chance?

 

[Alcove Audio]

The big problem is that there is nothing "basic" about sound treatment. Each room is treated to correct its individual problems.

Near field monitors were a big advance in audio monitoring when they came out 25+ years ago. Not to get into a history lesson, but "back-in-the-day" speaker systems were custom designed for the room in which they were installed. These huge speakers were ten or fifteen feet (and sometimes more) from the recording console. Near field monitors were designed to sit on top of the console, to be near the engineer (hence the name "near field"). For music purposes you can mix fairly well with near fields in a reasonably well treated room. The same does not apply to mixing for picture, however. Unless you are mixing directly for the web - which is still the wild, wild west as far as audio specifications are concerned - you need to mix for the specific environment. Mixes for TV must follow the specifications laid out by each specific network.

Mixing for theatrical films requires that you mix in a theatre setting, a rerecording or dubbing stage. The console is placed in the center of the "room" with a full sized screen just like you see in a movie theatre.

The rest of us just mix on a WAG (Wild-Assed Guess). If I have the time (and I rarely do except for feature projects) I watch/listen to a few films that are similar to the project I'm working on before I start mixing so I have a point of reference.

If you really want to get into what it takes to set up a room here's a pretty good reference:

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

My studio is in the basement of my home. For isolation my rooms are "floated" on neoprene pads. The walls of my rooms are six inches form the outer walls. They have 3/4" Celotex under two layers of 3/4" sheet rock and the ceiling also has 3/4" Celotex and 2" acoustic ceiling tiles. I've recorded bands and mixed at volume with no complaint form my neighbors. I have sound treatment to control the worst aspects of the rooms; I'll be doing more when the budget allows. I use Mackie HR824 speakers with the Mackie HRS120 sub.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

AudioPostExpert and rocksure... As interesting and informative as the posts have been, you're trying to teach doctoral physics to third graders. They may be smart and precocious and talented, but there isn't any real interest or application.

In the past we've tended to broadly agree in all the threads we've participated in together but in this instance I can't agree with you. In the music business there are the accepted roles of Recording Engineer, Mix Engineer and Mastering Engineer, while in the film/tv world the word "Engineer" has largely been dropped from the job titles, it is still a requirement dictated by the blanket description of "Audio Engineer". No matter at what level or budget filmmakers are working at, if they intend to fulfil one or more of the audio engineering roles by definition, at least a basic understanding of the "engineering" aspects of the role is a fundamental requirement. Contrary to what you stated, I was not even vaguely near doctoral level physics, more like pre-undergraduate 101! Basic monitoring setup and gain staging is essential at even the complete novice level of audio engineering. The problem many indy filmmakers fail to appreciate when they start looking at the festival circuit is that they're no longer dealing with the low budget, novice level monitoring environment they are used to but with the highest quality and specification audio systems/acoustic environments most human beings are ever likely to encounter.

I appreciate your info rich approach and know that we are getting a bargain, but telling me that I anything less then a $10,000 investment is not worth bothering to calibrate my mixing situation is disappointing and lacking inventiveness

I think that in common with the vast majority of Indy filmmakers you haven't really understood the context of my answer, which means I was at fault with my explanation, so I'd like to give it another go!

Many indy filmmakers have a reasonable or good idea of what is going on behind the scenes when it comes to creating and reproducing moving images for the cinema but have virtually no understanding of what's going on with the sound. We've mentioned several times before about Dolby approved dubbing theatres and how out of reach they are for the low budget filmmaker but Indy filmmakers don't seem to realise the context of this attitude. Far from being this unattainable pinnacle of audio quality, Dolby is in reality a bare minimum! At the higher-end of the film market, Dolby is considered to be below the minimum standards. That's why THX was invented nearly 30 years ago, to far surpass the Dolby monitoring and acoustic standards and today THX is used in all the premier dubbing theatres and cinemas.

People who go to see Indy films also go and see higher budget films and although people make allowances, like it or not, these higher budget films provide a reference point for comparison. I'm not so much talking about the $100m+ blockbusters, which no one should expect a low budget indy film to approach but the more modest $10m+ high quality dramas. Even dramas with considerably less than a $10m budget are routinely mixed in Dolby THX dubbing theatres.

So, let me revise my analogy. If we imagine a THX dubbing theatre to be a Formula 1 race car and a Dolby Dubbing theatre to be a supercar, the average edit suite or project studio would be a bicycle! On a race track, the supercar is going to be lapped a number of times by the Formula 1 car but at least it will be in the same race but not so the bicycle. Now say someone asks: "I don't expect to be able to compete with a Formula 1 car or even get close to one but what sort of bicycle or bicycle parts do I spend my $50 (or $1,000 or even $10,000) budget on to get me in the same race"? If answer given is: "spend your budget on whatever you want because it's not going to make much difference", would you say that was a disappointing or unimaginative answer or would you say the bicycle owner is being unrealistic because they don't understand or appreciate the issues? The answer should really be "sorry, you've got to be realistic, forget about your bicycle and start from scratch with a car". Same with audio post, you've got to forget about what cheap equipment would get you in the game and instead start from scratch with the right room (monitoring environment).

G

 

[AudioPostExpert]

Near field monitors were a big advance in audio monitoring when they came out 25+ years ago. Not to get into a history lesson, but "back-in-the-day" speaker systems were custom designed for the room in which they were installed. These huge speakers were ten or fifteen feet (and sometimes more) from the recording console. Near field monitors were designed to sit on top of the console, to be near the engineer (hence the name "near field"). For music purposes you can mix fairly well with near fields in a reasonably well treated room. The same does not apply to mixing for picture, however.

This is a very good point. Actually I think a little history lesson would be useful because arguably the biggest failing of almost all project studios is a misunderstanding of why nearfields exist and how to use them:

In the late '70s some engineer/producers started to become famous in their own right. Instead of being a studio employee some became freelancers. Now what you say about the large custom speakers in studios of the time is absolutely true but presented a problem for this new breed of named engineer/producers. The custom sound systems meant that every studio sounded different to every other studio and it's hard to know what you're mix is going to sound like if you're not familiar with the monitoring system/environment. In other words, there was no reference point. The urban legend states that Bob Clearmountain (one of the first of these celebrity engineers) wanted a small, cheap, crap sounding set of hi-fi speakers which he could throw in his car and take from studio to studio, to provide this reference point and give him some idea what the mix would sound like on a cheap home system. He didn't mix with them, he just used them to check his mixes. Clearmountain and others like him were getting all the biggest gigs and the recording studios wanted a piece of the action, so they bought these little speakers (Yamaha NS10s), even though everyone knew they were crap, to try and attract Clearmountain. By the end of the '80s the trend had caught on and pretty much every major recording studio in the world had a set of main monitors and a pair of NS10s sitting on the mixing desk. Relatively cheap computer technology in the '90s made it cheap enough for musicians and enthusiasts to start setting up home studios but they didn't have the space or money for the custom main monitor systems and acoustics. Fortunately though, NS10s were only a few hundred dollars and it seemed logical that if they were good enough for the world's top studios they were certainly good enough for home or project studios. Of course, market demand creates competition, so lots of other companies started to manufacture what became known as nearfield monitors.

Of course most nearfield monitors today sound a lot better than the NS10s but the fact remains that nearfields were never intended to be the main speakers used for mixing. While all the major recording studios still have nearfield monitors, they also always have large main monitors as well. In cinema dubbing theatres they only ever use large main monitors and the better TV dubbing theatres also use large monitors and usually also have some small crappy TV speakers to check the mix on, just like the original purpose of nearfields.

G