Tutorial 11: Track Groups and Stereo Panning Automation - Post-Production Audio Workflow Series

[@1MinEpicMoment]

Huge surprise and harvest! Very rare and professional! Thank you very much, best regards.

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Thanks for watching!

[@makisoundeditor]

love these tutorials!!! thank you for these, they're so helpful!

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Glad the videos are helpful! Thanks for watching!

[@logiqueraison5631]

thx for all those wonderful videos. I just don't understand why you route the PFX in the DX ? shouldn't it go to FX as there's no dialogues ? Also any production who wants to ADR the film can have those PFX seperate no ?

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Thanks! This is a good question. Generally the PFX track is also routed to the M+E (Music and Effects only) mix to help with ADR dubbing in foreign languages. I somewhat mention that in Tutorial 18. Hope that helps!

[@nicoraibak]

Amazing videos really helpful!!! I was wondering how do you set up your levels when youre mixing

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Thanks for watching. Download the free Youlean Loudness Meter and aim for -24 LUFS for film, -18 LUFS for KZbin. That's about it.

[@kelvinkurniawan07]

@@FilmSoundTutorials What audio file should I use to see the level? Thank you

[@JamesWestMusicMan]

Making my way through the series atm, just here to ask about 5.1 or even 7.1 surround. I know everything you've said still applies, but is there anything else I should know about panning for surround?? Thank you and great series.

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Happy to help! Here's my video on surround sound mixing: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2PFaYKXiM-KmKcsi=JIgivp7fkVok46HM

[@MPA188]

Hi Michael You said in the video it's easier to manipulate the panning by group them first, but I didn't see any instance yet, would you be able to elaborate it for me here? Also you pan the FX on the clip by clip bases, so I'm confused the benefit of grouping families of tracks in the first place.

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Check out Tutorial 12 to see why we need to group the tracks. But yeah I don't use them much while editing clips. I use them more for pre-mixing (Tutorial 12) and when I'm conforming sessions to new picturelocks. Then it makes moving large amount of files very easy. Hope that helps!

[@MPA188]

@@FilmSoundTutorials Yeah, I saw how you connect VCA track to various groups. I guess it would depend on DAW, different DAW may not need that step. Such as Audition.

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

@@MPA188 Sure makes sense. Thanks!

[@moritz.schaller]

Hey. Musician, composer and Audio engineer here. The way you handle the music is quite careless. STEMs are "STEreo Masters", meaning they are already mixed and mastered and they are the way they are supposed to be. You don't just go in and make things mono. Most of all, you don't just keep the left track. Having a stereo track doesn't mean that the material is actually wide. A bass STEM will always be a stereo track, even if the bass itself is mono and panned dead center. There mighht be a stereo reverb on it, or another stereo effect at higher frequencies. If so, this is probably intentional and you don't just take it away, especially without listening to it! You are also messing with the panning. Again: A stereo track doesn't have to sound wide just because it is panned hard left and right. Don't just make things narrower. You can mess up carefully miced stereo Images. If you do this to a track that was recorded with stereophony that uses time of arrival differences (like AB), you'll destroy all the depth of the stereo image and introduce phase problems. Don't do any of this without listening to the entire mix. I realize that this dubbing session has a lot of tracks and events, and "mixing" is somewhat pragmatic. However, mixing music is an entirely different matter that is very delicate. We deliver STEMs so that there is room to fix actual problems that can arise when the updated dialogue, sound effects and Foley come in. Not so that the dubbing engineer starts to remix the music. For example: The composer will typically compose music with (!) the dialogue playing and leave room for that already. Please don't treat delivered STEMs like all the other raw material in your session.

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Hey, these are all great points. I did edit this music more than I normally do since I was working with the composer in the room. I was also really preparing the music for 5.1 panning so that part of the reason for some of these decisions. But thanks for the comment!

[@sebastiandiaz29]

I wanted to ask you about 5.1 mixing, so you arrange everything in stereo and then you panned it in 5.1?, I´ve seen many people that create 3 channels for L R, 3 for Ls Rs and two for the center channel for the backgrounds

[@moritz.schaller]

Yanabe There are multiple ways of going about this. Either the composer works entirely in stereo and delivers stereo STEMs to the dub. If the movie is mixed in 5.1, the dubbing engineer might choose to pan these STEMs around. Maybe add a little of them to the surrounds. Maybe he just pulls the strings a little towards the surrounds. Maybe he adds some reverb to the surrounds to add space to the music. The center channel is usually reserved for dialogue. Also, the LFE channel is reserved for sound effects. As a composer, you can also choose to deliver 5.1 stems. In that case you can pan things whichever way you like. However: Center channel and LFE channel are pretty much off limits aswell. So 4.0 is what you'll be working with at most. While it's cool to pan room mics to the rear and such ... I personally do most projects in stereo. It puts less strain on my system and I can focus on writing music instead of dealing with he surround thing all the time.

[@sebastiandiaz29]

Thank you for your response, I´m going to make a low budget documentary soon and it´s full of old songs (already mixed and mastered of course), I´m thinking about just pan them to the surround spectrum or put some delays in the rear channels, what would you recommend me in this case?

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Hmm no I don't think I've seen that before. All of the tracks are stereo since that's how they were delivered by the composer. Then I pan everything depending on where I want things within the stereo image. But it's still very similar to how you would pan a stereo mix since you normally don't want instruments blaring from behind. Normally I just use the surround speakers for reverb. If anything, the main point of putting music in 5.1 is to give more space to the dialogue in the center of the screen. But you don't want it to be distracting people from looking away from the screen. Thanks!

[@ShampooWow]

Nice video! I like it

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Thanks for watching!

[@yeppy013]

What does a super session mean?

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

In the previous videos I did some audio work in different Pro Tools sessions, and then I combined all of the finished work into one single "super" session. So it just means that all of the previous work I did is now in one Pro Tools session. Hope that helps!

[@yeppy013]

@@FilmSoundTutorials Awesome! Thanks!

[@fazlulhaquenayan4352]

what should i do if the projection audio output is mono ?

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Then mix in mono? That's fairly rare nowadays except for a few airplane mixes. How that helps?

[@Zegmaar_Bas]

@@FilmSoundTutorials Airplane mixes! wow, didn't know those were a thing, but makes sense.

[@korohmnel]

where are the mixing ones?

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Tutorial 12 is probably what you're looking for. I have more videos on the pipeline on mixing but they're fully ready yet. Thanks for watching!

[@fazlulhaquenayan4352]

Thanks

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Thanks for watching!

[@Bgroundfilms]

Wow 😳 thanks a bunch for all this info. KZbin university

[@FilmSoundTutorials]

Thanks for watching!