Mixing feature on HD3

[Vedat]

I will be mixing a feature on a PT10HD3 (w D-Control) soon. It's a micro budget indie.
Any words of wisdom and sympathy is appreciated.
It will be foley and fx heavy unfortunately.
I am planning to work in individual foley, sfx, atmos, and music sessions and bring them in as stems with the dialog session into a mix session.
How would you do it? (without spending money LOL )

[mr.armadillo]

Use your ears and mix away.

[JKD99]

It can certainly be done, and I've done it several times up until I think 2 years ago when I started adding cards, and nobody will ever say that the tracks were not "full еnough"
If you have a lot of units, I would suggest either making hard predubs, or predubbing in groups and then manually squeezing the tracks together, and the automation will follow. Take 8-12 tracks of predubbed ADR, for example, and shuffle the regions around to get it down to 4-6. Makes it a little harder to dig something out, but usually there's NO reason for sessions to be as wide as a large-scale studio feature if it's a small indie.
And forget about being able to run multiple reverbs all over the place, at least as TDM. Gotta make do with fewer resources.
Good luck, make it sound great!
Best,
Joe

[Vedat]

Originally Posted by mr.armadillo

Use your ears and mix away.

That's the least of my worries.

Joe, you make it sound nice.

[thermisonic]

Managing expectations, particularly if the client has worked with higher budgets, might be my priority.

I would get the director/whoever in early to really go through the sound before the premixing. Think about scene transitions. Get them to pay attention to the sound at earlier stages so you are not revising heavily later. Transitions seem to be one thing some people like to change and experiment with and if you have premixed atmos you'll be unpicking it a lot if they want to go from hard cut to smooth or vice versa. If they are on a micro budget and presumably you are, then I would put more on them as clients to be involved in terms of time to make up for it.

Your foley could be levelled, possibly eq'd and premixed to 3 or 4 tracks (but with no reverb), then keep hidden and inactive the source tracks. If you like, you could print foley reverb to another track and you might get away with not needing much more.

keep hidden and inactive source tracks in your main mix session for unpicking. Use memory locators to store track show/hide status for your hidden tracks so you can recall say the various groups of tracks easily. You need to be able to switch quickly for any fixes/premix unpicking.

System resource wise, you can save a bit by using RTAS for source track eq and dynamics, saving your TDM resources for aux and masters. You can also save some voices (but definitely not time) by not having a stem recorder inside the session. You could just have one 5.1 record track and mute the auxes you don't want in each stem. Many more record passes, 18 less voices. Can only work if your deadline is 'flexible' or if someone can do the playouts for you because it is so time consuming for the system.

Also think about whether you need all tracks to go to 5.1 paths. I generally have dialogue going to an LCR sub path which saves some TDM resource instead of everything going straight to 5.1. Same with foley. If you need to send it out to the surrounds for an off screen shout, just re-route that particular track direct to the 5.1 dialogue bus as and when you need it and your panning will be intact.

Print your noise reduction even if you are planning to run a live dialogue mix in the final.

Hope this helps,

Rob Walker AMPS

[Brent_Sydney]

STOP IT! DON'T HELP HIM!
He's making plugins that are designed to put us out of work!
jokes
Vedat - dont forget destructive punch. If you're predubbing you may want to run Mx and BGs in one session and then put Dx and Fx in a master session which refers to the BG and Mx stem files. That way if you need to do fixes in session 1, (BGs and Mx) it will update in session 2, your master session when you next open it.

[matt-o-]

Originally Posted by thermisonic

System resource wise, you can save a bit by using RTAS for source track eq and dynamics, saving your TDM resources for aux and masters.

All good tips.
One more concerning system power: I used to mix a lot with a HD3. For balancing the power of your TDM system I recommend using the short delay compensation setting. This one uses DSPs 1-3 and 8+9, leaving the DSPs 4-7 with more RAM for the plug-ins, which only run on them (Reverbs, Unwrap etc.). The long engine needs the 4-7 chips, therefore reducing your choices. Be aware, that nearly all (>70%) of your TDM power will be used for the mixer, if you use a complex 5.1 bus setup.
If you have a current MacPro the native power gives you an equivalent to a HD5/6 system at least (in comparison... I had a MacPro1.1 with HD3, when I upgraded to a Quad MacPro5.1 with HD3 I needed a HD5 with MacPro1.1 in the mixing stage to open the session and rebalance the plug ins from native to DSP...)

Greetings,
Matthias

[Vedat]

Thanks guys, all good tips!
Brent, how reliable is the destructive punch these days? I used it once or twice when it first came out and had some issues regarding clicks and pops at drop-in points. Sounds like what I'll be doing though, thanks.

Luckily my deliverables are only MIX and M&E.

But now it is getting a bit hairy: Film cut in 25fps, and delivering 24fps.
I have read This thread and other about some methods. But in my case, I have the choice to work to 24 or 25 to start with.
Music is composed on the 24fps output movie.
I am gonna work my dialog and ADR to the 25fps, and do everything else to the 24fps. Then I'll make a 24fps session to bring the dial session in and convert files to 50kHz. A the end, I will use a pitch shifting plugin to shift the dial stem up, then mix the whole thing by stems. Seems a bit convoluted and not very flexible as far as doing revisions etc but could be the best sounding alternative. Any other ways I could go?

[Brent_Sydney]

Haven't had a problem in the last 2 years I've been thrashing DP.

I wouldn't be mixing and matching frame rates. Stick with what they are cutting in. If they're cutting 25 work in 25 then pull your mix later.

That way if you get a change (at 25fps) mid job you are all talking the same frame rate and can audition changes at 25fps. Consider 24fps just a deliverable to be done at the end.
I wouldn't get hung up over sonic quality of a pull up/down. At the end of the day its probably going to be played through crappy 20 year old horns in a room which isn't calibrated at a level which no one would rightly want, so just do the best you can with what you've got in front of you in a way that makes you look good for follow up work - ie be prepared for changes rather than worry about sound quality.

[Vedat]

Originally Posted by Brent_Sydney

...so just do the best you can with what you've got in front of you in a way that makes you look good for follow up work - ie be prepared for changes rather than worry about sound quality.

Good advice!

Should I ask that the Composer work to 25 frames then?