Avid LoRo Downmixer

[antonis]

Thanks for the input everyone, much appreciated!

Originally Posted by minister

L+R phantom has less high-mids than a straight up C channel.

Why do the high-mids loose acoustic energy when in phantom center? Is it simply a speaker position issue?

Originally Posted by minister

If you are getting phasing, check your reverbs and/or delays.

Yes, that was the first thing to check. Fairly standard settings actually, nothing to exotic and I collapsed them to LR for a dedicated stereo pass. Revibe and Space.

Originally Posted by minister

Many LoRo downmixers as a default dump the LFE. But, if you are truly using it as a Low Frequency Effect channel, why dump it? Why not blend it in? It's not duplicating anything. Try -12, or -9 or -6 and see if it makes a difference to you.

Would anyone know what the Avid Downmixer does, meaning does it dump the LFE? I might as well try and check tomorrow and I'll report back.

Originally Posted by KingTor

I don't know your room, but the above sentence makes me think a phantom center doesn't sound as good as a center speaker. Our first mix stage didn't have proper acoustical treatments to the left and right of the screen so the left and right speakers had much more room reverb than the center and I never liked my stereo mix-downs. Have you listened to the 5.1 mix with a phantom center just for comparison sake?

Very good point. I will check on that asap really.

Originally Posted by KingTor

Any boom and lav tracks being mixed and causing phasing issues in the mixdown?

Nope, no lavs and boom were mixed together. I was lucky with this one: location sound - was for the majority of it very well boomed. Only a handful of lav usage. Which actually made the issue all the more obvious.

Originally Posted by Pete Gates

Was assuming your monitoring is good (other posts have queried that), failing that it must be reverbs/delays or some effect that is introducing a phase element. A lot of people I know (appeal to nebulous authority here!) use surround treatment of dialogs very sparingly, if at all.

Nothing spectacular but decent monitoring, I'd say: All Gennies 1032s LCR, 8040As LsRs.

Apart from multi-channel reverbs no surround treatment whatsoever.

I'll go and investigate what Tor brought up and check what I can re studio acoustics.

[KingTor]

Originally Posted by antonis

Would anyone know what the Avid Downmixer does, meaning does it dump the LFE?

There's a fader for it that allows you to decide how much. Some of the presets include Lfe, some do not.

Nope, no lavs and boom were mixed together. I was lucky with this one: location sound - was for the majority of it very well boomed. Only a handful of lav usage. Which actually made the issue all the more obvious.

Is the issue worse on the boom than when you did use lavs? Was it a mono boom?


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[antonis]

Originally Posted by KingTor

There's a fader for it that allows you to decide how much. Some of the presets include Lfe, some do not.

Duh! Yes, of course!

Originally Posted by KingTor

Is the issue worse on the boom than when you did use lavs? Was it a mono boom?

The lavs were used scarcely so not good to measure against (a lot of beards and thick, heavy coats).

Yes, all mono. I would genuinely investigate this avenue first before posting the question. No M/S business here.

OK. I'll check with the engineers here and try and get them to make some measurements.


Thanks!

[KingTor]

Side note: I was introduced to M/S production sound in Germany and I love it. They were mixing in LCRS on a lot of those films (mid-90s--there was still a format war going on in Europe for 5.1 or SDDS 7.1 so a lot of films just stuck with LCRS rather than paying for 4 film print masters), and the M/S dialog worked really well. I've mixed one movie (in 5.1) that recorded a stereo camera mic plus a mono boom and it took a little messing about with a delay to get the phase coherent, but it ended up giving me an M/S-like sound and downmixed just fine using Dolby Surround Tools. It's an extra hassle, especially since it's not commonplace, but the results are quite rewarding to my ear. Some day I'll convince a production mixer to use an MS boom mic.....

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[MIKEROPHONICS]

Hi Tor

When I was at the BBC (early 90's) many Fischer boom shows (Eastenders, sitcoms etc) were MS booms. AKG 522 on interiors and often Neumann RSM 191 on poles for exteriors.
I was trained to operate a boom in stereo - you learned to not pan so that the image moved and to do more lateral movement.

Boom operating was not an art I excelled at though, and was better at operating AMS Audiofiles and Akai Samplers (the new whacky toys).

As a dubbing mixer, we used to have Booms on the desk as two faders (M and S), - one mono and one stereo. Converting is simple.

[KingTor]

Yeah, man. That's what I'm talking about. I wasn't on set, but there were a few movies in Studio Babelsberg (Die Purzfraueninsel is the one I remember for sure) that used a similar approach. I didn't edit or mix the dialog, but I loved the way it sounded on the stage, gave the dialog a real feel without mucking around with panning and dialing in reverbs. (I was supervising sound editor but let die deutschen Editoren, Vera Burnus and Dominik Bollen, handle the dialog while I was supervising Foley and the effects editors and designing sounds. Then I was the only sound editor on stage, so I did work with the dialog as a linked pair of mono. I'm pretty sure the re-recording mixer brought the S up on two faders so he could play up one side of the room over the other.)

Originally Posted by MIKEROPHONICS

Hi Tor

When I was at the BBC (early 90's) many Fischer boom shows (Eastenders, sitcoms etc) were MS booms. AKG 522 on interiors and often Neumann RSM 191 on poles for exteriors.
I was trained to operate a boom in stereo - you learned to not pan so that the image moved and to do more lateral movement.

Boom operating was not an art I excelled at though, and was better at operating AMS Audiofiles and Akai Samplers (the new whacky toys).

As a dubbing mixer, we used to have Booms on the desk as two faders (M and S), - one mono and one stereo. Converting is simple.

[IMG][/IMG]

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[TheMuffinMan01]

Originally Posted by KingTor

FWIW, I often send full bandwidth to the Lfe track for a DCP, but low pass it at 120Hz for mixdown and, yes, use that effect.

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You should filter your LFE for DCP. Cinemas that don’t have a filter in their audio chain will send the info above 120 to the sub and cause distortion.

[KingTor]

My intent is to send audio above 120Hz to the sub. I'm not doing it irresponsibility (I don't get calls from Michael Bay), but I do use the effect of a sub playing full bandwidth with intention. It's not mixing 101, that's for sure, and should be done carefully, but I've been mixing 5.1 for 20 years now.

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[TheMuffinMan01]

But then either the filter in the cinema’s audio chain will cut your LFE track for you, it will play it unfiltered and distort, or it will play unfiltered and won’t distort. Audio information above 120 will also help localize the subwoofer for the audience. So considering that, what is the purpose of your intention to send full bandwidth material to the sub?

[KingTor]

Have you listened to full bandwidth sound through a subwoofer? I'm sure you have if you've seen any summer action movie (the first Thor movie did it a lot from what my ears told me), but I mean have you listened to it by itself? That's the effect I use sometimes. I'm not telling you or anyone they should do that and I'm certainly saying you should only do it if you really understand how it's likely to play in a variety of theaters. If they do low pass my Lfe channel it'll still work. If they don't, I'm confident it'll sound good. And if it sounds good, it is good.

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