Post prod engineers! Deliver ITB film music in stems/separate tracks - levels and S/N

[mattson]

Hi

First, this is not about getting a loud mix or standard mixing levels for movie theater.

I've searched the internet and this forum but haven't found an answer yet. Could be I'm not native english speaking so I'm not entirely sure what to look for, please bear with me...

I've done film music with mainly software synths and samplers. Delivered stereo tracks to discuss the music with the director and producer. All is good and approved of and now I'm going to deliver the music in separate stems to the sound engineer. Based on the stereo tracks I've delivered before, he wanted me to raise the volume in general to avoid having to raise them himself which apparently would add noise.

I'm always careful not to make it sound "digital" or "samplish", so I'm probably too careful and have a tendency to use very low velocitys in samplers and bring all levels down bit by bit rather than raising them. Therefore, the levels are very low.

The film will be screening in cinemas and will also be on tv. Don't know about dvd yet.

My very basic questions:

1) In what ways can I raise the volume compared to what the sound engineer can do with my sound files?

2) I guess if I just raise the volume of the track or master before mixdown, that would just add noise in a similar way to when the sound engineer digitally raises the volume on my sound files? Or does it matter if the volume fader is above/below zero?

3) Only way I can think of then is to boost the samplers output (again, better to stay at zero or could I go above?) and raise the wav files I do have to original level. Is there something I'm missing?

Sorry for this convoluted post for such simple questions. This is my first film music job so I want to get it right and would love to get some input from you all, given your vast experience.

Cheers
Mattias

[georgia]

its not going to matter at this point. The trick is to record original tracks at nice hot levels so all you ever do is lower the volume ( hence lower the noise floor ). When you mix music for film run the level of the mix in and around -12 to -20.
(obviously taking into account big hits and quiet passages...) It will give the film mixing engineer a little bit of room to raise and lower according to need in the dub stage.
If everything is already recorded and mixed, it doesn't matter if you raise the levels or the mix engineer at at dub stage does...

cheers
geo

[mattson]

Originally Posted by georgia

its not going to matter at this point. The trick is to record original tracks at nice hot levels so all you ever do is lower the volume ( hence lower the noise floor ). When you mix music for film run the level of the mix in and around -12 to -20.
(obviously taking into account big hits and quiet passages...) It will give the film mixing engineer a little bit of room to raise and lower according to need in the dub stage.
If everything is already recorded and mixed, it doesn't matter if you raise the levels or the mix engineer at at dub stage does...

cheers
geo

Thanks for the fast reply!
Then I know about my audio files.

However, I use mainly samplers and synths, so what I'm about to do is render/bounce from MIDI-controlled regions (software samplers&synths). Nothing is actually recorded due to a fairly low budget. Everything is composed ITB, if that's a term you can apply to composing...?

Anyone that has experience with these kind of things?

[philper]

Originally Posted by mattson

Thanks for the fast reply!
Then I know about my audio files.

However, I use mainly samplers and synths, so what I'm about to do is render/bounce from MIDI-controlled regions (software samplers&synths). Nothing is actually recorded due to a fairly low budget. Everything is composed ITB, if that's a term you can apply to composing...?

Anyone that has experience with these kind of things?

But you are still delivering a RECORDING of your music, right? So the mixer is asking you to RECORD your mix hotter than you have been, or up the levels in your own music pre-mix. Recording a synth at a lower level doesn't make it sound less "digital", except in relationship to other sounds in a mix. You might want to consider lowering the monitor level in your own studio and recording a little hotter--same effect for you while working but the mixer will be happier. Does your music have a lot of dynamic range? Are you doing very quiet bits as well as very loud, full scale parts too? If the mixer is hearing a lot of noise in your tracks when they bring up the levels then either you are WAY under-recording or your instruments are noisy (or their analog output level is turned way up because your patches are programmed to make a low level output).

Philip Perkins

[gsilbers]

Originally Posted by philper

But you are still delivering a RECORDING of your music, right? So the mixer is asking you to RECORD your mix hotter than you have been, or up the levels in your own music pre-mix. Recording a synth at a lower level doesn't make it sound less "digital", except in relationship to other sounds in a mix. You might want to consider lowering the monitor level in your own studio and recording a little hotter--same effect for you while working but the mixer will be happier. Does your music have a lot of dynamic range? Are you doing very quiet bits as well as very loud, full scale parts too? If the mixer is hearing a lot of noise in your tracks when they bring up the levels then either you are WAY under-recording or your instruments are noisy (or their analog output level is turned way up because your patches are programmed to make a low level output).

Philip Perkins

....or the analog part of the chain is creating hiss along the way.

[gsilbers]

id ask the same question here:

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