Mastering Film Music

[gsilbers]

curious to know if film music is properly mastered. also if TV music is mastered?

as opposed to L2 mastering

or DVD mixes get mastered if they are separate mixes than the theatre/ broadcast mixes?

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by gsilbers

curious to know if film music is properly mastered. also if TV music is mastered?

as opposed to L2 mastering

or DVD mixes get mastered if they are separate mixes than the theatre/ broadcast mixes?

Film music is recorded and mixed by the scoring engineer, and delivered to the dub stage without further processing. There, the music re-recording engineer applies whatever additional processing, balancing, or level rides are necessary while mixing to the picture in context with dialog and effects.

Film music released on a CD as a soundtrack album does undergo the traditional mastering process. Typically, the original scoring mixer's work is the source material.

DVDs are often tweaked for home release, and whether you call it remixing or remastering depends on your viewpoint. There were a few specialized facilities that handled this work early on (like Mi Casa), but now, all the major studios have their own in-house studios/stages to perform the task as well (like Universal's Blue Wave).

Traditional mastering houses are not part of this chain. The original mix stems from the dub stage are used as a starting point, and they are processed, modified, added to, rebalanced etc. to make the eventual home release. It is usually not simply an EQ and comp tweak to the composite theater mix, though this unfortunately does happen sometimes. It is also not a complete, ground-up remix from all the raw elements.

Hope that was the info you were looking for.

[Silvertone]

And yet I've spent the last week mastering 190 music cues that will be going into upcoming major movies, as I have for the last 4 years. Name the film, Beowulf, Spiderman 3, MI 2 & 3, The shooter, The Departed, 3:10 to Yuma, The Brave One, Resident Evil, etc... and I have mastered work in it.

I know what you are saying Brad but with the exception of the film score many of the other music elements are mastered, other music cues, sound FX, the trailers and the commercials.

So the answer is yes and no. In the end it's the post engineer who decides the final levels but I can assure companies like Megatrax, Q Factory, APM, and Robert Etoll Productions want all their music mastered prior to the films, tv shows, commercials and games that their work goes into.

[minister]

Originally Posted by Silvertone

And yet I've spent the last week mastering 190 music cues that will be going into upcoming major movies, as I have for the last 4 years. Name the film, Beowulf, Spiderman 3, MI 2 & 3, The shooter, The Departed, 3:10 to Yuma, The Brave One, Resident Evil, etc... and I have mastered work in it.

I know what you are saying Brad but with the exception of the film score many of the other music elements are mastered, other music cues, sound FX, the trailers and the commercials.

So the answer is yes and no. In the end it's the post engineer who decides the final levels but I can assure companies like Megatrax, Q Factory, APM, and Robert Etoll Productions want all their music mastered prior to the films, tv shows, commercials and games that their work goes into.

Are you talking Production Library Cues? That is what Megatrax, APM etc are.... That's a whole other cylinder of wax.

The question was about Original Score. As to procedure for Original Score, by a composer for that film, Jay is absolutely right.

What you describe, I call part of the 'soundtrack'.

PLEASE tell me that you don't master EXTREME MUSIC library. Who ever approves that should be shot ! (I understand about ME's doing what the customer wants!) THAT 'MASTERING' makes it REALLY hard to mix! I mixed a really noisy car racing TV show -- read lots of engine noise and wind -- that used that Library. My ears were grits at the end of the day dealing with all that smeary upper-mid and mid-range blaze! it was a study in digital distortion.

By the way, Jay F., in July I was in the Dub Stage where you used to work............. Which, as i am sure you know by now, is changing hands.

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by Silvertone

And yet I've spent the last week mastering 190 music cues that will be going into upcoming major movies, as I have for the last 4 years. Name the film, Beowulf, Spiderman 3, MI 2 & 3, The shooter, The Departed, 3:10 to Yuma, The Brave One, Resident Evil, etc... and I have mastered work in it.

I know what you are saying Brad but with the exception of the film score many of the other music elements are mastered, other music cues, sound FX, the trailers and the commercials.

So the answer is yes and no. In the end it's the post engineer who decides the final levels but I can assure companies like Megatrax, Q Factory, APM, and Robert Etoll Productions want all their music mastered prior to the films, tv shows, commercials and games that their work goes into.

Production music, definitely (it ends up on CDs after all); music for commercials, often; music for games, very often; trailers... depends if they are using score (same as with the film), or songs or specific music for advertising, (then the ad rules apply).

All this is different from the score. If the movie uses all known songs, then those will have been mastered already as well. In these cases, it's either advertising, or music that was not intended only for the movie, or specifically for the movie. Composers, library music producers, and the like succumb to the same pressure to have their music sound louder than the next guy so it competes favorably for the gig. I've not heard of a score for a major movie that has been mastered. Actually, if a score showed up smashed, they would probably bounce it back to the provider. -20dBFS is a real standard in film, and the dynamics are essential in a score. I've often heard re-recording mixers express concern about having to use music-industry intended and smashed music on the dub stage.

So sure, a mastering house can get work from post companies, and I certainly have (also for names you know), and in addition to the mastering, I've worked as a re-recording engineer for feature film, and in prime-time network TV drama, so I have an interesting perspective from both sides. But mastering elements is quite different from mastering the score or the DVD or the TV mix (dialog, FX, and music composite). If you mastered a TV mix, you'd undoubtedly have peaks above +10 (also known as -10 dB FS to us music types) and the show would be rejected by the network. When is the last time you heard a CD where the peaks were at -10 dBFS?

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by minister

By the way, Jay F., in July I was in the Dub Stage where you used to work............. Which, as i am sure you know by now, is changing hands.

I always liked the sound of that stage. When I was there it was in need of a few technical upgrades, but I could never fault the sound of that room. Glad to see it's been well cared for. Dr. Sound cleaned up a few of the outstanding niggles.

[Pedro_vde]

Originally Posted by jayfrigo

Production music, definitely (it ends up on CDs after all); music for commercials, often; music for games, very often; trailers... depends if they are using score (same as with the film), or songs or specific music for advertising, (then the ad rules apply).

All this is different from the score. If the movie uses all known songs, then those will have been mastered already as well. In these cases, it's either advertising, or music that was not intended only for the movie, or specifically for the movie. Composers, library music producers, and the like succumb to the same pressure to have their music sound louder than the next guy so it competes favorably for the gig. I've not heard of a score for a major movie that has been mastered. Actually, if a score showed up smashed, they would probably bounce it back to the provider. -20dBFS is a real standard in film, and the dynamics are essential in a score. I've often heard re-recording mixers express concern about having to use music-industry intended and smashed music on the dub stage.

Indeed the original question was regarding the soundtrack... the elements that Silvertone is referring to are called Source music. As we do it over here source-music is treated as any other commercial release where score is handled (read mastered) at the final dub stage.

I've already send to much L-whatever score back to the composer/music-studio as it's impossible to mix it in any natural way in a complex film-mix.

Kind regards from Belgium

Pedro

[Silvertone]

Originally Posted by minister

Are you talking Production Library Cues? That is what Megatrax, APM etc are.... That's a whole other cylinder of wax.

The question was about Original Score. As to procedure for Original Score, by a composer for that film, Jay is absolutely right.

What you describe, I call part of the 'soundtrack'.

PLEASE tell me that you don't master EXTREME MUSIC library. Who ever approves that should be shot ! (I understand about ME's doing what the customer wants!) THAT 'MASTERING' makes it REALLY hard to mix! I mixed a really noisy car racing TV show -- read lots of engine noise and wind -- that used that Library. My ears were grits at the end of the day dealing with all that smeary upper-mid and mid-range blaze! it was a study in digital distortion.
.

Not always just library Cues, sometimes it involves the original score as part of the trailer and commercials. But yes you are right I was talking about the other production cue elements, my bad.

No I don't master the Extreme Music Library or X Ray Dogs. Tracks that I've heard from those companies always seem very stripped out of the most musical frequencies, very harsh and in your face. All due to extreme limiting!

I try to retain all the original dynamics yet make it loud the way they want. I just did one project for a producer out of Iceland that spent over 120K for the 80 piece orchestra and 40 piece choir, the last thing I want to do is destroy that work for loudness sake. It's what keeps these guys coming back to me. They seem to be caught up in the loudness war as much as the music industry and it's the music that is suffering for it.

[streaky]

Originally Posted by jayfrigo

I've not heard of a score for a major movie that has been mastered.

You're not looking very hard then.

Our senior engineer, Kevin Metcalfe, has been mastering film scores for years. Musical scores for films DO get mastered just like movie soundtracks do.

Regarding Extreme - they came to us (oh not the rock band by the way...) as part of a shoot out with a few other studios here and in the US, with a view to mastering 2500 tracks (yes, really) in a 6 month period, and then another 5000 if they liked the result enough to pay the price. Based on 1 track.

No idea where they went in the end, but I wish whoever it was the best of luck.

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by streaky

You're not looking very hard then.

Our senior engineer, Kevin Metcalfe, has been mastering film scores for years - a lot of John Barry films and more recently anything that Craig Armstrong has done (Romeo & Juliet, Love Actually, Moulin Rouge, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and so on. Musical scores for films DO get mastered just like movie soundtracks do.

So, to be clear, you are saying that the scoring engineer records and mixes it, then it goes to a music mastering studio, and then it gets delivered to the dub stage? And the music re-recording mixer doesn't complain that it's no longer referenced to -20? Are you sure he's not just mastering the score for the CD release? Sounds odd to me, but if you've seen it, OK. I never saw it in Los Angeles.

[streaky]

To give you a truthful answer to that...I don't know. To my knowledge, the last couple of scores we've done haven't been for CD release. But I'd be 2nd guessing the label if I said I knew for sure it wasn't for CD release. We were certainly under the impression on the last one that it was for dubbing, hence being asked not to go for maximum level and so on.

Forgive me if someone's already mentioned this, but can't the dub engineer just turn it down? (the age old question!) And what about mastering houses that also cater for DVD authoring and DVD mastering? Doesn't that mean that a traditional mastering house is involved in the process of dubbing a score to picture?

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by streaky

To give you a truthful answer to that...I don't know. To my knowledge, the last couple of scores we've done haven't been for CD release. But I'd be 2nd guessing the label if I said I knew for sure it wasn't for CD release. We were certainly under the impression on the last one that it was for dubbing, hence being asked not to go for maximum level and so on.

Forgive me if someone's already mentioned this, but can't the dub engineer just turn it down? (the age old question!) And what about mastering houses that also cater for DVD authoring and DVD mastering? Doesn't that mean that a traditional mastering house is involved in the process of dubbing a score to picture?

A few points up there, so let me throw out a few toughts:

1. You mention label, and once a label is involved, it's for some kind of consumer product release, whether CD, SACD, download etc. Label deals are done separately from the film's theater release. If there's a label involved, it isn't for dubbing. For dubs, you'd be communicating with the film studio (Warner, Universal, Paramount etc.), or possibly the music editor or scoring mixer.

Also, you'd have to stay within studio specs or it would get bounced back to you (specs are real and matter for post still), you'd be doing it in surround, your deliverables would be something appropriate for the dub stage (MMR-8 hard drive, pro toos session, maybe a DA-98 tape), you may need a large multitrack system if they were working with pre-mix stems, possibly several surround premix stems, so you'd need to be able to process and deliver a 24 track master at the outside.

Depending on when you get it in the workflow, it can get even more complicated. You need to maintain strict sync if you get it after the music editor, or you'll keep the slates with the cures, and then deliver to the music editor for him/her to place it. Depending on where it is coming from and where it is going, you will want to have a handle on sync, from house sync/black burst and SPMTE, to 50, 59.94, 60 Hz reference, and 24, 25, 29.97, and 30 Frame, drop, non-drop (shouldn't be an issue for film, or in EU, but sometimes is delivered in error), and the difference between rame rate and frame count.

2. If it's for dubbing, never mind not going for maximum level, you should just leave it at the reference level. Standards are real in film, for many reasons. Even for CD release, you limit, and increase level, but still you would not want to go for maximum level on an orchestral film score. Not only are the dynamics hugely important to the creative intent, but the smashed sound is too obvious and just not appropriate for an orchestral score. Therfore, they usually request or assume reasonable level (though increased) for the CD release too.

If you deliver something too loud to the stage, it's not like they don't have the technical ability to lower it, but heck, you could send a DAT tape out as a CD master too. Doesn't make it a good idea or technically correct. There are many drawbacks. The re-recording mixer can turn it down, but then where are you going to get the dynamics and impact for the hits for those scarey parts? Plus, you're mixing with the faders way low and don't have enough travel or fine tuning ability, and the gain-staging is messed up, causing increased noise, and very real potential for added distortion on top of the distortion already created by mastering so loud.

OK, so you pull it down inside pro tools so your gain staging is better at the console, but you still have lost sound quality for no good reason since nobody will ever hear the score alone like that - it's gone to the dub stage to be mixed in context. Plus, you still have lost the impact of the hits. I guess you can just turn those up every time, but they won't sound the same, and now you've created a lot of work, both adjusting gain staging and the need for more rides up for hits and down for quiet sections, and it just doesn't work as well as a movie score anymore. Why squash it to add 12 dB of subjective level just to to turn it down 12 dB after you've done that? Would you limit a CD by 12 dB, and then pull it down 12dB below full scale before printing it to CD? There's no point. You gain nothing; only lose.

3. For mastering houses who do DVD authoring, they don't process on a theatrical film's DVD release. They just handle authoring, and if they have a graphics and animation department, the menu creation.

Prepping a DVD mix is more of a mini dub, where you take the mix stems, and essentially use them as a basis for a small re-mix. You may EQ and compress the stems, and ride them in certain parts to account for the dubbing curve and to make the dynamic range more appropriate for home consumption. You sometimes add some FX or bits of other elements as well. You also do a mini-mix on some deleted scenes and bonus material. You need a room with proper sync and quality picture display. It's really a post mix job, and not a music mix or mastering job. It's for someone with the room, tools, and experience for post. A concert or music video DVD is the kind of project that a mastering house with authoring would process and then author; not a major motion picture.

And still, all this tweaking and processing for DVD has nothing to do with the theatrical release of the picture. The printmastering stage is where the Dolby guy comes to the dub stage (example assuming it's an SR-D picture), and the mix stems are played down to a composite that goes into the Dolby computer where the AC-3 encoding is done and an MO disc is made to get sent to the optical house (we used to use NT audio in Santa Monica) where the answer print, and eventual release prints are made. This is where the digital 5.1, or possible7.1 for SSDS, and optical Lt-Rt get put on a piece of film along with the picture and can be played in the theaters. DTS, SR-D, and SDDS can all live on the same print, along with an analog Lt-Rt SR track on the optical track. The Dolby Digital (the "D" of SR-D) goes between the sprocket holes, the Sony SDDS goes on the film edges, and the DTS actually just references sync printed on the film next to picture and the sound is pulled from a CD-ROM running alongside.

With anything, there are exceptions, and I'm sure there are a few scores out there that have had post-scoring procesing applied. I also know some old films have been released without going through any remixing or remastering, and there are also some cheap new movies that just get a quick trip through some EQ and compression on the composite mix, but thse aren't the preferred work flow any more than the albums that release the rough mixes from the tracking session with no mastering are a preferred workflow for a music project.

Sorry for the long post... Hope somebody finds it useful!

[minister]

Originally Posted by streaky

Forgive me if someone's already mentioned this, but can't the dub engineer just turn it down? (the age old question!)

And Expansion is the opposite of Compression?

Films are mixed in a calibrated environment that assumes a playback reference level. Mixing a music track at low levels and increasing the apparent loudness is not "undoable".

Excessive EQ, and relative levels between instruments in a track is difficult to change to make it fit in a mix.

MOST films that have original scores have what the music department calls 'stems' delivered. That is, the percussion stem; the brass stem; the strings stem; the winds stem; and so on. no Summing, though some pre-mixing to create the stems will occur. the Film Mix department will take their dialogue pre-mixes; FX pre-mixes, etc and blend in the Music 'stems'. Need more Drums in this sequence? here you go. need to make the horns larger? here you go.... eliminate an instrument all kinds of options.

If you want to call what a 'Scoring Mixer' does before it gets to the Dub Stage MASTERING, then you have a funny definition. if the Scoring Mixer -- who takes the recording of the music and creates the stems, PROCESSES those tracks, he/she is not MASTERING. Mastering is preparation of the final Master that goes to duplication. In Film, it is the Re-recording mixers who assemble the Printmaster. the MO disk that goes to the lab that gets married to the Print. THEY are the mastering engineers.

So, I don't see how you can call "processing the audio to sound good before it hits the dub stage" mastering. If you process the audio and prepare the tracks and create a "Pre-master" that goes somewhere for duplication of some kind with no other step in between.....

THAT SAID, i have had a MASTERING ENGINEER work on one of my music tracks to give it a final listen and tweak before sent it off to the Lab for the Printing. Music only film.

Oh, and Larry DeVivo : I did not mean to imply that you would intentionally slam tracks (unless that is what the client wanted). I am well aware of the Hugely Massive Helios thread..........

In a show like THE SHIELD or NIP AND TUCK a "music supervisor" selects tracks from various sources within his library or his connections. These are often "finished" tracks, but often with alt mixes for flexibility. MOST of THOSE have been mastered. As such, i consider them part of the Soundtrack, NOT score.

[gsilbers]

interesting cross over thread.

and interesting responses

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by minister

MOST films that have original scores have what the music department calls 'stems' delivered. That is, the percussion stem; the brass stem; the strings stem; the winds stem; and so on.

Totally crossing into post territory here... Anyway, I usually refer to them as "music pre-mix stems" so that it makes sense on both the scoring and dub stages. Just calling it music premixes may imply that it is not broken down into percussion, strings etc, rather just the premix that the scoring mixer did. However, calling it stems is confusing on the dub stage where mix stems are dialog, FX, and music, and sometimes subsets thereof, mixed to picture, which, when combined, create the final composite mix of the film. Of course all this extra talk is more for the lurkers since I know minister knows all this stuff. Anyways, "premix stems" seems to me to be the best way to describe what we are talking about here to keep everybody on the same page.

[minister]

Okay, great, we are going to venture into the ambiguity and contextual use of "stem" for all the non-cross-over types......


i am just echoing what Jay is saying here....

what the music dept. calls 'stems' the mix dept. calls 'pre-mixes'.

the mix dept.calls 'stems' those printed (finished) separate components of a mix (DIA, FX, BKD, MUSIC) when set at unity and summed together, add up to 'the mix'.