Mixing Television in 5.1

[The Mookster]

Hi,

I have been reading GS for years now but this is my first post. I started my audio career in large commercial studios in NY but with the business the way it has been the last last few years I have started working in broadcast. For the last 2 years I have mixed most of the broadcast music mixes for the NBC Today Show. I mix on dual PT HD6 systems with Mac Pro 8 cores, (10)192's per system on a 56 fader ICON with 80 Channels of Grace Remote controlled Mic Pres. Monitoring in 5.1 with M&K monitors and Sub. I monitor the stereo down mix LTRT via a Dolby 570 processor and an LORO stereo down mix via return from the Calrec broadcast console. I also monitor the 5.1 program feed via the Calrec so I can make sure the broadcast mixer does not process my mix! I have been searching the forum but I have not found many posts about television mixes. Anyone out there doing anything like this? I have only been doing 5.1 for a few years now and I feel like I am just getting it down. I check my mixes at home in surround in my living room via my Cablevision DVR and consumer Samsung home theater and the stereo down mix in my bedroom on a 23" LCD with standard television speakers. I also check the Today Show website and YOUTUBE to see what streaming does to my mixes. I feel every mix gets better and better. I have had no problems with broadcast operations compressing or limiting my mixes and the down mixes have been accurate. It has been a journey going from the studio to television. I have to work very fast in morning television. I get a 30 minute rehearsal that I get to record then I have an hour and fifteen minutes to do the mixes and save snapshots for 2 to 4 songs. Some of these bands can have up to 72 inputs so I do the best I can do in the time given to me. Anyone have any advice or war stories?
Thanks,
Matt

[LX3]

Originally Posted by The Mookster

Hi,

I mix on dual PT HD6 systems with Mac Pro 8 cores, (10)192's per system on a 56 fader ICON with 80 Channels of Grace Remote controlled Mic Pres. Monitoring in 5.1 with M&K monitors and Sub.... Anyone out there doing anything like this?

If there are, I suspect there aren't many of us! That's a very impressive workflow you have going.

I'd say 80% of my work these days is recording and mixing for TV, but I'm an independent (i.e. I own the kit) so my resources are definitely limited compared to yours! TV budgets for music shows also seem to have become insanely tight in the UK the last few years (unless it's just the shows I get offered!), so if I had the kind of high-end gear that you're using - and charged appropriately for it - I might never get booked.

Not that my kit isn't slowly going up-scale. This is GearSlutz after all. But unless someone wants to invest a swift £100,000 in me, it'll just have to happen in small increments.

On the whole, the only time I get to mix in surround is for DVD releases, but I have done two TV projects in surround. Irritatingly, on one of those two TV shows, it turned out the guys in the dubbing studio couldn't figure out how to handle the surround mixes I gave them, despite sending them half a page of notes. After a couple of phone calls to the dubbing studio and talking to some surprisingly non-technical sound people, the director sent me a text message to say that they'd had some issues but "it was all fine". Then it was broadcast with the live stereo mix I did on the night, meaning that the three days of post production mix work I had done went out the window. Disappointing, I'd worked my ass off on those mixes.

So these days I'm careful when telling people about the TV shows I have coming up, as I'm never entirely sure what's going to happen to the sound down the line. Strangely, it seems the bigger the show, the less willing people are to discuss sound. It shouldn't be that way, and I look forward to working on any larger job which proves an exception to this rule. The smaller low-budget shows tend not to have so many "sticky fingers" if you get my meaning, and that can be a good thing for the end product.

I hear you regarding working fast. Actually, half an hour to work on a mix sounds like luxury! Because of tight schedules on the day, most "rehearsals" on the shows I've done turn into glorified line-checks. It's very rare that I get an entire song played start to finish by the actual talent, so even if I have time to work on the live mix, I don't have much source material to work up a mix with. I'm usually guessing what's going to happen with about 50% of it. But therein lies the challenge .

Always interested in comparing notes. Seems like Huub's your man 'round these parts. And Steve and Jim of course. Probably others too.

[The Mookster]

It's good to hear other people are out there doing the same thing! I have been lucky as NBC put together a great system/control room before I got there and since have worked with me on customizing it to the way I want to work. I have thought about putting a mobile rig together but I think competition is already tight in NYC and with the budgets the way they are it would probably take a while to recoup that type of investment. Plus I already have so much gear in my studio I could not imagine having a whole mobile rig to store and cart around. My girlfriend would kill me! As far as what finally makes it to peoples television sets the audio engineers at NBC tell me that what leaves the broadcast console is what is going to the audiences set top boxes. In the DTV world they are telling me that their are no limiters in the chain. The big variable is the set top box as each subscribers box does the LTRT down mix. No down mix is sent over the air only the true 5.1 feed. This presents a lot of variables with all the different cable providers and brand/models of cable boxes. Also most peoples 5.1 systems are probably not tuned properly and most peoples living room's are not great acoustic spaces with a good sweet spot for 5.1. I know my $1000.00 system did not come out of the box sounding right. It took me a while to tune it with pink noise and lots different listening material(Movies, Sports, Concert DVDs, etc). How many consumers are spending the time doing that? And I can only imagine all of the SRC, Hall, Concert, Movie, Speech, Jazz settings that people are using which is probably destroying the mix as well. Why do they make those God awful eq/efx presets for people to play with? I am a realist and know that at 8:30 in the morning how many people have their surround sound systems on? Probably not too many. So I focus on the LTRT down mix first and when I feel thats happening I start monitoring in surround. As far as post messing up my mixes...it has happened. I did a live taping during a commercial break and played back later in the show. I was shocked when listening to the feed some how the only played back my L/R channels with the C/LFE LS/RS channels all gone! That sucked. As far as the rehearsal time. A lot of artist don't want to rehearse at 5:30 in the morning especially if they played a gig the night before. So a lot of times I will only get a band rehearsal without the lead vocal or if its a solo artist I might just get the backing band. So I have to guess whats gonna be coming my way! A lot of times the first 30 seconds on air I am still getting the vocal right. I feel your pain on that one. One problem I get with our inside concerts is the space is so small that I get drums in everything. With some bands its not that bad but others it can really ruin a mix when you open up 5 or 6 vocal mics. Also our whole performance space is surrounded by glass and hard flooring. An acoustic nightmare. If anyone has anymore info I would love to hear it. I am always trying to learn something new.
Thanks,
Matt

[philper]

I mix for TV all the time, mostly long-form docs. I make sure the stereo works first, then the 5.1 and then the LtRt which is what we still deliver, mostly. Re broadcast 5.1 being downmixed to stereo to whatever by home systems, it seems to me that all you can do is make sure your monitor system is as on-cal as it can be, and try not to get fancy with the panning and what you put in the rears. My test system for this is the mega-TV in my brother's "great room". He and his family buy a system, pay the store to set it up, and then leave it. One day I took the liberty of looking at some of the settings--everything was on "11"--picture and sound. Announcer VO was coming out of the rears. Overamped subs and rears. I guess the install guys figure that people paid for those "extras", and that the way to not get called back for tweaks is to make sure they are all cranked. I was very depressed until I realized that I just needed to be even more conservative than I'd thought, and that you just have to hope for the best w/ the home systems.

phil p

[John Willett]

The masters of the Genre here in Europe are Florian Camera of ORF in Vienna and Mike Felton (BBC) in the UK. Mike does the sound for "Later ... with Jools Holland" which is broadcast in 5.1 in the USA.

Both of these are on the closed forum of the Institute of Broadcast Sound - ibsnet - website is .

If you are working in broadcast sound you can request a temporary guest access to ibsnet if you are not a member of the Institute.


Posted via the Gearslutz iPhone app

[The Mookster]

John thanks for the heads up. I will look into those guys. If they are the main guys out there I am sure they have some interesting thoughts on the subject.

Phil, I hear what your saying about panning in the LsRs. One guy I have worked with panned stuff to the LsRs aggressively and his down mixes would be all messed up. So bad to point that viewers were complaining and Broadcast Operations called asking if we were having technical problems.

With a live concert performance I personally do not like having instruments in the LsRs speakers. It just feels weird to me watching a performer on stage in front of me and their instrument is coming out of a speaker behind me. Unless it is a album like a Pink Floyd, Queen, Sgt. Peppers,etc album or something of that nature were you have lots of movement and experimentation I prefer ambience in the LsRs.

I put crowd mics and reverbs in my LsRs speakers. I pan them hard Ls/Rs. I then start my mix listening in LTRT even when I introduce the LsRs crowd mics and reverb into the mix. Then I try flipping phase on all of those. When I find the combination where I loose the least amount of ambience in my LTRT mix I then start monitoring in surround. It always seems to be the right amount then in surround. Once in surround I might have to adjust some levels but it usually very close.

I do not know if this applies to doing the long form doc that you mix and maybe you have tried it but try flipping the stuff in the rears out of phase and see if it helps your down mix. It might totally suck for your purposes but I have never mixed anything like what you do so I would not even know where to begin! Your the expert on that not me. Thanks for posting on the thread. I hope to hear from more people.
Thanks,
Matt

[roonsbane]

Nice thread Matt,

We at Minnesota Public Radio/American public Media have been doing Neural encoded 5.1 stuff for a little over a year now. My colleague who will hopefully chime in has been broadcasting many of the Friday night live performances with the Minnesota Orchestra in 5.1. I have also been prepping certain Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra pieces in 5.1 for "Performance Today".

For those that don't know about Neural, it is a DTS technology that allows for 5.1 encoded signal within a stereo signal. Stereo receivers that have the "Neural" logo will automatically read the signal and decode it properly. it will also decode, (although maybe not as accurately) using Dolby Digital.

I have been trying to figure out what the Neural box is actually doing to the stereo signal which is obviously the most important element.

At this point, it looks as though I may be mixing the upcoming national Saint Olaf Christmas special in neural. Unfortunately, it all takes place in a Gym, so much of work will be spent replacing the bad sound of the room with a complimentary, "musical" space. So I will have a large orchestra in front with 4 choirs behind on risers, (maybe two hundred singers). The most difficult issue is the fact that the entire choir is broken in to four zones of different choirs. Imagine a + sign dividing them. Each choir sometimes sings alone, and sometimes they all sing together. Sometimes with orchestra, and sometimes acapella or with a piano sitting upstage. When a small choir in the left upper zone sings acapella, they need to be panned full left to right. When they sing with the other choirs or orchestra, they need to be panned back to a wide perspective. Also, sometimes the full choir moves and sings out in the room and the audience of about roughly 1500 also joins in. Good times! My setup is a DM2000 console being fed by an apogee A/D16X, being fed by Millenia, ATI and John Hardy preamps.

Not to hijack the thread here but, I would also love to hear from others specifically using Neural to transmit their 5.1 signals.

Cheers
Cameron

[philper]

Originally Posted by The Mookster

John thanks for the heads up. I will look into those guys. If they are the main guys out there I am sure they have some interesting thoughts on the subject.

Phil, I hear what your saying about panning in the LsRs. One guy I have worked with panned stuff to the LsRs aggressively and his down mixes would be all messed up. So bad to point that viewers were complaining and Broadcast Operations called asking if we were having technical problems.

With a live concert performance I personally do not like having instruments in the LsRs speakers. It just feels weird to me watching a performer on stage in front of me and their instrument is coming out of a speaker behind me. Unless it is a album like a Pink Floyd, Queen, Sgt. Peppers,etc album or something of that nature were you have lots of movement and experimentation I prefer ambience in the LsRs.

I put crowd mics and reverbs in my LsRs speakers. I pan them hard Ls/Rs. I then start my mix listening in LTRT even when I introduce the LsRs crowd mics and reverb into the mix. Then I try flipping phase on all of those. When I find the combination where I loose the least amount of ambience in my LTRT mix I then start monitoring in surround. It always seems to be the right amount then in surround. Once in surround I might have to adjust some levels but it usually very close.

I do not know if this applies to doing the long form doc that you mix and maybe you have tried it but try flipping the stuff in the rears out of phase and see if it helps your down mix. It might totally suck for your purposes but I have never mixed anything like what you do so I would not even know where to begin! Your the expert on that not me. Thanks for posting on the thread. I hope to hear from more people.
Thanks,
Matt

The phase thing is an interesting idea but I'm a little worried about how the resulting LtRt would decode in funky festival setups, and situations like my brother's "home theatre". I've had good luck being conservative w/ the rears etc, but your idea might allow one to be somewhat more aggressive if the project called for it. Did you ask this question on the GS Post-Prod Forum too? You might get some more answers there.....

phil p

[The Mookster]

Cameron,

I have never heard of Neural Encoded 5.1 it sounds very interesting. So you broadcast stereo and Neural 5.1 systems up the signal to 5.1? I wonder what kind of algorithm is used? I wonder if it is similar to the Linear Acoustic UPMAX which take a stereo signal and opens it up to a 5.1 signal that can be fed via broadcast but also able to correctly re down mix to LtRt at the viewer's set top box. It was designed by a guy name Tim Carroll who is a well regarded 5.1 expert. You should check out his stuff.

I would guess with all the panning you have to do you saving snapshots or grouping stuff and panning multiple things at once? It has been a while since I used the DM2000 and I was never an expert on it! What do you put in the center channel? Soloists? The center of the choir or orchestra?

I have a similar situation with trying to create a "musical" space. The outside Toyota Concert Series takes place in Rockefeller Plaza on a concrete street, between six concrete buildings covered with glass. It has a very harsh sound to it with a lot of slap. Not exactly Lincoln Center!

This ties in the "musical" spaces and the phase of whats in the LsRs that I was discussing with Phil on this thread. I use reverbs and audience mics to create a "musical" space in the rears. I have reverbs for the front and reverbs for the rears. I put a considerably longer pre delay on the reverb in the rears than in the front. That coupled with the delay of the audience mics creates my "concert hall". Since it is a delayed ambience of whats in the front I think the phase flip hasn't caused havoc on my down mix. As it is not a direct source panned half way between front and rear. It is not flipping it self out of phase in the down mix. I am just flipping the phase of my ambience which is panned hard LsRs. Sometimes the LtRt sounds better with the verbs and audience in phase, sometimes out or a combination of both. I try to get the LtRt to have the same ambience as the 5.1 .

Phil, I am just curious in your line of work what kind of sources would go to the rears? Nat sound? Music? Sound Efx? I could see how certain things could make it tough on the down mix like moving Sound Efx that is following a graphic?

-Matt

[philper]

Originally Posted by The Mookster

Cameron,


This ties in the "musical" spaces and the phase of whats in the LsRs that I was discussing with Phil on this thread. I use reverbs and audience mics to create a "musical" space in the rears. I have reverbs for the front and reverbs for the rears. I put a considerably longer pre delay on the reverb in the rears than in the front. That coupled with the delay of the audience mics creates my "concert hall". Since it is a delayed ambience of whats in the front I think the phase flip hasn't caused havoc on my down mix. As it is not a direct source panned half way between front and rear. It is not flipping it self out of phase in the down mix. I am just flipping the phase of my ambience which is panned hard LsRs. Sometimes the LtRt sounds better with the verbs and audience in phase, sometimes out or a combination of both. I try to get the LtRt to have the same ambience as the 5.1 .

Phil, I am just curious in your line of work what kind of sources would go to the rears? Nat sound? Music? Sound Efx? I could see how certain things could make it tough on the down mix like moving Sound Efx that is following a graphic?

-Matt

We don't get very fancy--the rears are mostly just used to provide a little "wrap" for the music and stereo ambs. The story is in the dialog which stays up front. We just like how spreading out the music and ambs seems to draw you into the movie a bit, or in a theatre/festival playback "reaches out" to the viewer a bit. On indie drama I might get busier w/ the rears (and LFE) if the director wants that--usually they don't.

phil p

[roonsbane]

Matt,

So with the Neural broadcasts we are doing a 5.1 mix that gets sent to a down-mix encoding box. There is an AES stereo output of that box which is what goes out to the transmitters. In order to hear what the neural is doing we have another up-mix decoding box that lets us hear the neural 5.1 mix. This contains the same algorithm that is on my Denon receiver in my living room. On our surround monitor controller we can listen to discreet 5.1 or Neural 5.1. Yes these do sound different. We can also monitor the stereo mix from the console as well as the stereo mix from Neural. It is obviously doing some heavy duty phase tricks to do what it does. In the Neural demo it can reproduce the surround "Money" intro from Dark Side of the Moon very close to the SACD version panning wise. It is pretty wild.

For the panning on the different choirs I was doing it a bit different than my colleague who alternates broadcast years with me. He actually saves presets with different pannings. I was bringing up two different channels with the same source, each panned differently and saved in different snapshots. We are both then using the DM2000's cross-fade time to switch between presets. Then very importantly, of course you need to shut off preset recall of any dialog fader channels that I need fader control of when the preset is called up.

I have not been sending anything to the center or LFE for that matter. I am choosing to go the phantom center route instead and hoping that their bass management systems will be set for proper "music" listening. More likely they will be set bass heavy which makes me even more weary of sending more bass out the LFE.

If you click on "listen" on this page: Classical Minnesota Public Radio
most Friday nights at 8:00PM central time you can listen to the Minnesota Orchestra which are often broadcast in Neural. They will announce this.

Here is the link to our website that includes info about these neural broadcasts: DTS Neural Surround Sound | Classical Minnesota Public Radio

Cheers
Cameron