Mixing stereo vocal stem into surround.

[reichman]

Working on a show where the transition from dialog to singing is intended to be very natural, and the songwriters are giving me stereo lead vocal stems. It's a little disconcerting going from dialog in the center channel to singing in the phantom center .

Should I require the songwriters to send me LCR mixes? Or am I being too picky and should I just live with it? I can't think of anything to do besides upmixing with Iosono.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[The Cargo Cult]

you can't just toe into center?
maybe drift out to sides over the first few lines?

[Peter Cole]

Originally Posted by reichman

Working on a show where the transition from dialog to singing is intended to be very natural, and the songwriters are giving me stereo lead vocal stems. It's a little disconcerting going from dialog in the center channel to singing in the phantom center .

Should I require the songwriters to send me LCR mixes? Or am I being too picky and should I just live with it? I can't think of anything to do besides upmixing with Iosono.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Are there effects on the vocal track? If so you could use an UpMix plug in to give you hard center and the vocal effects will spread out making the transition easier.

[Craig F]

run the 2.0 mix through a Pro Logic decoder, record the results

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by reichman

Working on a show where the transition from dialog to singing is intended to be very natural, and the songwriters are giving me stereo lead vocal stems. It's a little disconcerting going from dialog in the center channel to singing in the phantom center .

Should I require the songwriters to send me LCR mixes? Or am I being too picky and should I just live with it? I can't think of anything to do besides upmixing with Iosono.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

If I were the music mixer on this, I'd *definitely* want you to tell me that you need hard center; I'd want to mix the music with that in mind, and eq/effect the vocal in a hard center presentation.

The music mixer should appreciate good communication with the dub mixer in a situation like this. If they don't, or if they don't have the ability to generate LCR stems, well then, you gotta do what you gotta do...

best,
rich

[reichman]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your experience with this.

don't have the ability to generate LCR stems

...this is what I'm afraid of. I'm going to make the request, but I'm really not seeing a transition to LCR on the TV music side of things yet.

[alexbooy]

You could make a MidSide routing from the 2.0.
That will give you a Centre and LR tracks, which you can mix to fit.

Alex

[seanmccoy]

Originally Posted by alexbooy

You could make a MidSide routing from the 2.0.
That will give you a Centre and LR tracks, which you can mix to fit.

Alex

I was going to ask if MS would be the answer here. How would that affect the downmix? Would it be better to duplicate the track and dedicate one to C and one to LR?

[Henchman]

Having mixed quiet a few projects with performance vocals, the best way is to either simply pan the stereo dead center, or use an unwrap plugin.
Also, I always make sure the music supervisor knows I want dry lead vocals.
No exceptions.

[viaspiaggia]

was about to post about a similar issue!

I do a lot of kids' stuff that has vocals and dialog blended, and I'm usually doing the music mixing so I can keep the vocals discreet center with my own verbs.

But on a current show I'm getting a few songs mixed by a music guy, and his vocal stem is stereo with effects baked in. I'm mixing some songs which will have my usual hard-center-vocals. To make matters worse he's using CLA Vocals which literally CAN'T make a dry and wet print. Was going to suggest him making a stereo with no delay or verb turned on, and one with, and trying a phase flop to pull them apart.

But would the Iosono or something else successfully pull the dry and wet apart? I had thought about M-S, too, but haven't played with that inside PT - got a good suggestion for a plug to decode?

thanks!