Getting into Sound Design for film - LE or HD?

[spicyitaliano]

It may seem obvious - any professional in the film industry would say HD or something equivalent. I understand completely. But let me explain my situation.

I've been a recording and mixing engineer for a while now, working with musicians in the studio and live acts on stage. I was recently offered a job to do some sound design work for a fantastic short film, completely done by professionals seeking to build their porfolios, and work for free. Cinematographers, set designers, make-up people, and then the post guys - visual effects, CGI, a composer with an original score played by a full orchestra, and then myself - the sound designer. The final product looks and sounds incredible, and everyone is so thrilled about it. The film is going to the Sarasota and Sundance film festivals!

Anyway, the director was so happy with my work that he invited me to work with him on the next film - a full-length feature backed by a rather large film company, a very generous producer, and a hefty budget. This has been a thrill for me, taking what knowledge I knew about building stems of dialog, foley, and sound design - and creating the final mix. Now I've always used ProTools in the studio and used my own LE rig for this past project.

But as this project comes closer, I need to decide on my rig...LE or HD? It really comes down to features. WIth the DV Toolkit 2.0, I get all the meat and potatoes I would need for utility work with sound design. I could get this for my own system and have everything I would need to get started. Everything - except for surround sound. I currently don't own a surround setup (because I use LE) but could budget for one. I have a good concept of surround mixing for film (because I'm a sound-design/move nerd) and feel that I could handle that end of things. The real decision comes with the amount of money I would need to spend (yes, I would have to purchase it) in order to get surorund mixing capabilities.

So what do you all think I should do? Heaven forbid...should I consider Logic?

[mindnoise]

HI,

perhaps this helps you: (http://www.surroundassociates.com/fqmain.html#6.1)

6.6 How can I get a surround mix from a stereo console?
Here's a little trick that will give any standard console the ability to do surround panning as long as you have at least 4 busses available. Although the following is a bit easier to visualize on a English-style split monitor desk, it can be performed on an in-line console just the same.

In the stereo world we're used to panning from left to right using a left and right stereo mix buss or odd/even recording busses. If we dedicate two mix buses, say busses 1 and 2 for example, to left and right front and busses and 3 and 4 to the rear, then we are restricted to only being able to pan back and forth between left and right either in the front or in the rear. The hard part, and what we want most, is the ability to pan front to back.

We can do this by just assigning the busses a little differently. Simply make busses 1 and 4 the front mix and 2 and 3 the rear. Now by assigning busses 1 and 2 you can pan left front to rear and busses 3 and 4 pans right front to rear (See Figure 1). Although it doesn't work perfectly, you do get the sense of panning diagonally as well by using 3 busses such as 1, 2 and 4 for left rear to right front for example. In fact, any combination of buss assignments (even all four at once) will get you most places that you want to go in the surround field.

This method doesn't give you the ability to pan to the center speaker though. You still need a hard buss assignment (buss 5 perhaps) or preferably an aux send for that. But it does stretch some added surround mileage out of that seemingly over-the-hill stereo desk.

an there´s Ambisone from prosoniq:
http://products.prosoniq.com/cgi-bin...etail&refno=13


and as an ignorant DIY guy, I´d say: If the want 5.1 let them PAY!

I´d also check with the post&surround forum of the DUC, they should know!

regs

[gonzo99]

Nice post mindnoise. I'm gonna hafta try this

[Arno Peeters]

I use a Yamaha 01V96 to do surround over the ADAT-lightpipe: 8 channels from 002r -> surround panning and busing on the 01V and back -> ADAT in PTLE. Is even automatable!