Question for PRO mixing guys...

[jkuehlin]

Yeah. For a full cinematic dub stage, but will also be able service the game developer clients, regional broadcast corporations, and advertising firms.

Even though DrTechno answered the question in the original post, I'll respond anyway, since it seems there are some that are quite curious about the workflow.

In the film, TV, and gaming industry, you need to be able to turn projects VERY fast. Massive console i/o is needed to manage a network of DAWs that can have track counts into thousands. Now the tracks do fold (this means stems, busses, and channels ultimately get dumped on one or two faders per sound effect, foley effect, or ADR dub. However, even folded into stems, they still have to be dispersed between multiple pro tools machines because usually, the folds are managed from the DAW stations, not from the central console. So for example, I'll have 3 DAW operators at the final dub, and two console engineers (any one of which might be me) all working at the same time.

In a busy action cue (lets take an arial fight for example), there are foley effects of jet engines, explosions, machine gun fire, actor dialogue, sound effects from the airplane control panels (beeps, buzzes), a full orchestral score, and potentially ADR from another voice talent...lets say at a command base giving orders to the pilots. Then we have to feed everything to busses (sometimes before the fold, sometime after) for transistor radio FX (lets say for pilot radio communication) doppler imaging, and Atmos/7.1 surround management. This all requires enormous track count. In music you might dump all of your guitars into one stereo summing bus. You don't get to do that in film. Each time a jet passes while firing its machine gun, you have to designate a new channel for it. Because your 7.1 or Atmos panner will automate differently, depending on the camera shot and movement of the object on the screen. If one of the fighter jets veers off to the left, you need to do something to make it sound like its veering off to the left. If you have seven jets in formation, you can't just recycle the same jet sound. When one pilot gets hit and ejects, you'd better believe the sound of the parachute deploying is a foley effect. Here's the catch. A ~single~ gunshot (lets say a 9mm or a 40 cal) can eat up seven or eight tracks before the fold. So can a blood splat when someone falls over and dies. Count the amount of times someone died in a movie like 300, and start doing the math.

Yeah, a lot of projects are boring as hell. Do I need 1000 channels to broadcast a hunting and fishing show on local TV? Nope. Do I need 1000 channels to mix a church music broadcast? Nope. Regardless, when the bigger projects come along, you need to be pretty well aware of your multi machine capabilities and your limitations as well. If the project is too big, you just pass on it and send it over to a studio that can spread the project over 10 fully loaded pro tools rigs. (Again, Disney and Universal have no problem with this).

ps...I record full orchestras on a weekly basis.

Pss...my lowly state of South Carolina logged $168 million in direct spending from the film industry during 2015 alone. When I launch this facility I will be the only audio post house (with an atmos dubstage) in my state.

 

[Bobbsy]

As one who had done audio post for TV, I can say that, yes, we often have a large channel count (though never anywhere near 760 whatever). However, you don't need anything like this number of i/o channels. The largest at any one time would be recording the music in a large stage with what can amount to a symphony orchestra--but this is a pretty standard requirement in any large sound stage.

The rest of the tracks aren't recording at the same time. You tend to have a certain (but relatively small) number of dialogue tracks, a similar number of ADR tracks plus foley and other sound effects. The thing is, all these other things are laboriously compiled one at a time then dropped into Pro Tools (or whatever you're using) for the mix. As for outputs, typically you'll be working to 5.1 or 7.1 but you don't need 762 outputs.

As I said in jest (but now say seriously) have a chat to the folks at Avid about how this wort of audio post suite is set up.

 

[miroslav]

Got it.
Like I said...

...unless you're going to open a video/film post production house?

Big setup, big investment...hope it pans out for you.
Not trying to be the glass is half empty guy......but there's an awful lot to lay out in anticipation of work to come.
Granted, you'll have the area to yourself in SC...but does the film industry come to you or go to one of the many post facilities on the west coast where all the action is?
I just wonder how these things are projected out in a business cost/profit analysis....?
I mean...it's not like some guy starting up a little local studio in his garage...and if it folds, no big loss.

Good luck.

 

[RFR]

Yeah. For a full cinematic dub stage, but will also be able service the game developer clients, regional broadcast corporations, and advertising firms.

Even though DrTechno answered the question in the original post, I'll respond anyway, since it seems there are some that are quite curious about the workflow.

In the film, TV, and gaming industry, you need to be able to turn projects VERY fast. Massive console i/o is needed to manage a network of DAWs that can have track counts into thousands. Now the tracks do fold (this means stems, busses, and channels ultimately get dumped on one or two faders per sound effect, foley effect, or ADR dub. However, even folded into stems, they still have to be dispersed between multiple pro tools machines because usually, the folds are managed from the DAW stations, not from the central console. So for example, I'll have 3 DAW operators at the final dub, and two console engineers (any one of which might be me) all working at the same time.

In a busy action cue (lets take an arial fight for example), there are foley effects of jet engines, explosions, machine gun fire, actor dialogue, sound effects from the airplane control panels (beeps, buzzes), a full orchestral score, and potentially ADR from another voice talent...lets say at a command base giving orders to the pilots. Then we have to feed everything to busses (sometimes before the fold, sometime after) for transistor radio FX (lets say for pilot radio communication) doppler imaging, and Atmos/7.1 surround management. This all requires enormous track count. In music you might dump all of your guitars into one stereo summing bus. You don't get to do that in film. Each time a jet passes while firing its machine gun, you have to designate a new channel for it. Because your 7.1 or Atmos panner will automate differently, depending on the camera shot and movement of the object on the screen. If one of the fighter jets veers off to the left, you need to do something to make it sound like its veering off to the left. If you have seven jets in formation, you can't just recycle the same jet sound. When one pilot gets hit and ejects, you'd better believe the sound of the parachute deploying is a foley effect. Here's the catch. A ~single~ gunshot (lets say a 9mm or a 40 cal) can eat up seven or eight tracks before the fold. So can a blood splat when someone falls over and dies. Count the amount of times someone died in a movie like 300, and start doing the math.

Yeah, a lot of projects are boring as hell. Do I need 1000 channels to broadcast a hunting and fishing show on local TV? Nope. Do I need 1000 channels to mix a church music broadcast? Nope. Regardless, when the bigger projects come along, you need to be pretty well aware of your multi machine capabilities and your limitations as well. If the project is too big, you just pass on it and send it over to a studio that can spread the project over 10 fully loaded pro tools rigs. (Again, Disney and Universal have no problem with this).

ps...I record full orchestras on a weekly basis.

Pss...my lowly state of South Carolina logged $168 million in direct spending from the film industry during 2015 alone. When I launch this facility I will be the only audio post house (with an atmos dubstage) in my state.

Thanks for the explanation.
At first I couldn't tell if your post was serious or a joke. It definately fell out of the realm of 'normal' posts this place gets. For sure it was outside of my area of knowledge.

It seemed some were mocking your thread a little. I did not go there. I was smart and read through all your previous posts, and came to the conclusion you had some experience playing with the 'big boys'

Hope you get it all sorted out and good luck with your endeavor.

 

[jkuehlin]

As one who had done audio post for TV, I can say that, yes, we often have a large channel count (though never anywhere near 760 whatever). However, you don't need anything like this number of i/o channels. The largest at any one time would be recording the music in a large stage with what can amount to a symphony orchestra--but this is a pretty standard requirement in any large sound stage.

Thanks man. I appreciate the thoughts. I wanted to hit somewhere in the 700s with all machines combined as a ~possible~ available i/o on the routing matrix into the console. I didn't want to get strapped to a max of 192 (64 x 3 over madi) at a single station. The A and C rooms at Disney have one large machine and 10 smaller ones. In my experience this is because of the way the satellite (or ion slaves in their case) are assigned to manage different parts of the fold downs. ...I mean with the Avid satellite software I could potentially go up to 1264 tracks (which is the size of the madi router) but I would certainly stop long before 1264...No one in their right mind wants to buy that many HDX cards!

Does your post room run an Atmos rig? I've been shopping options. Your comment about the channel count... I mention it because I'm told the workflow has changed quite a bit...having to do with how parts of certain sound effects now have to be accessible for object based panning? So the older method of FX designers being able to create the parts of the sounds then hand a flattened and merged stem to the dub stage is a little more complicated. Now the dub stage guys want the option of going back in and de-constrcuting the elements of merged fold so they can attach them to the atmos panner. For example, a gun shot firing from the front, but the ricochet might hit heavier on one of the ceiling speakers. That could harder to set up if you can't divorce the shot from the ricochet because the file was flattened. Just curious if you noticed a difference in size.

The rest of the tracks aren't recording at the same time. You tend to have a certain (but relatively small) number of dialogue tracks, a similar number of ADR tracks plus foley and other sound effects. The thing is, all these other things are laboriously compiled one at a time then dropped into Pro Tools (or whatever you're using) for the mix. As for outputs, typically you'll be working to 5.1 or 7.1 but you don't need 762 outputs.

As I said in jest (but now say seriously) have a chat to the folks at Avid about how this wort of audio post suite is set up.

I had a lot of the basics down, I was just hung up not the machine management system. As far as avid goes, I want to avoid their SAN systems until I absolutely have to buy them. And even then, I'd like to not have to use avids. They're overpriced. The former isis arrays, and now the nexus, aren't mandatory. I don't yet see why a good enterprise server like the OWC Jupiter Callisto can't do the job over a 10G ethernet. If I'm wrong, let me know.

 

[jkuehlin]

However, you don't need anything like this number of i/o channels. The largest at any one time would be recording the music in a large stage with what can amount to a symphony orchestra--but this is a pretty standard requirement in any large sound stage.

Agreed...I take my orchestra clients on a mobile rig. I actually use their spaces, because they always seem to have gorgeous auditorium stages, and the construction costs of a tracking room for these guys would be brutal. I'd go broke trying to build it.

I use a 128 channel Yamaha rig (Dante/Nuendo) or a 128 channel (Midas/Madi) rig. All depends on what kind of camera and TV network they need me to tie into (sometimes for broadcast too). I've taken choirs over 100+ with full orchestras and pipe organs, and have never run short on channels.

 

[jkuehlin]

Big setup, big investment...hope it pans out for you.
Not trying to be the glass is half empty guy......but there's an awful lot to lay out in anticipation of work to come.
Granted, you'll have the area to yourself in SC...but does the film industry come to you or go to one of the many post facilities on the west coast where all the action is?
I just wonder how these things are projected out in a business cost/profit analysis....?
I mean...it's not like some guy starting up a little local studio in his garage...and if it folds, no big loss.
Good luck.

Those are good questions to ask. And I think there's something to be learned from all the huge studios that have crashed and burned in both the music and film industries over the last 6 years. In South Carolina, the film commission is an extension of the department of tourism. I worked really closely with them before breaking ground to find out how this works. Most of the major cinematic work is not going to me. Matter of fact, none of it is at first. We're gonna have to try and fight for it. The good news is that my current workload of smaller TV, advertising, gaming and broadcast work will easily sustain the facility. We have enough right now to have bought all the gear and get the building paid in full without acquiring a single penny of debt. The other things that's kind of nice is I'm in one of the poorest cities in the country. I can buy a usable 5000 square foot building with the land its sitting on for $10K-$20K cash. My taxes are going to be about $300/year. Matter of fact, I passed on a building that was even less than that, and potentially could have worked, but we discovered that internet quite hadn't made its way out there yet. And furthermore, I qualified for a technology development grant under the South Carolina department of commerce that will eat the cost of my buildout. Keep in mind that's a grant. Its not a loan. Once they realized I was educated, qualified, and experienced enough to possibly pull this off, the government gave me the money to try...(after a senator, a couple congressmen, and the director of the state film commission vouched for project).

You asked about the cost to profit analysis. Major films can spend $15-$35 million on audio post alone. Low budget films (as in under $2m) might pay $80K to $150K to have sound design, score, composition, music supervision (that's the guy who picks the music for certain scenes), basic foley and ADR done under one roof. If I have the pro tools rigs properly configured and work around the clock, my staff and I could handle about 3 of these per year. In addition to our current workload of TV ads, broadcasts, occasional music projects, and video game contracts. As much as we've been in the box guys up to this point, that mixer is actually really gonna help us turn projects out faster. If we're eventually lucky enough to land a regional cable series, it would book us to the brim for an entire year, and at that point I'd have to hire more staff.

Anyone is going to be able to do what I do with the technology. That's not really the competitive advantage. Every studio sports some variation of the same gear at the pro level. What is the advantage which might lure some of the indie film and low budget (as in under $2million) films over to my place is the price. Compared to the Local 700 union wage scale in California, they can pay me a quarter of what it'll cost them to send it to Cali like everyone else does. And I can operate within 1/3 of the cost of the audio post studios in New York. And South Carolina, by law, is a non-unionized state (yay for our infamously forward thinking lawmakers at large...hint of sarcasm). Can you convince them that I can do decent work? My portfolio will answer this question in time.

 

[Bobbsy]

I don't have any personal experience of the Jupiter Callisto. The last audio post facility I had any involvement with (and I didn't mix there, just acted as a design consultant) used an AVID ISIS shared storage system which allowed a great deal of collaboration among the various rooms.

At this point I should say that I'm not great fan of AVID or Protools. They cost a lot and they're a pain in the butt to work with. However, from the sound of it you want to attract big name clients and, if so, that's the sort of gear they expect you to have. I'd bit my lip and have a chat to the not so nice people at AVID.

I'd also be talking to clients and potential clients about exactly what they expect from you and what they're willing to pay to make sure your business plan works.

In case you're interested, THIS is the place I mentioned doing consultancy for. I'd already retired at that stage but the Managing Director had worked for me previously and asked me to do a few days for her as a favour--some very nice Soho London lunches were a big lure. Six months ago I would have pointed you in Jo's direction for a chat but, alas, she sold out her share of the company a while back and is now living a life of leisure.

 

[miroslav]

...I'm in one of the poorest cities in the country. I can buy a usable 5000 square foot building with the land its sitting on for $10K-$20K cash. My taxes are going to be about $300/year.

That's damn good!
If you don't mind...what city...or at least, what part of SC are you talking about?

I always had NC as a possible destination if I ever decide to leave the NY/NJ area....Ashville was great when I was there camping in my younger days. I hear that it has a pretty decent arts community now.

 

[jkuehlin]

I don't have any personal experience of the Jupiter Callisto. The last audio post facility I had any involvement with (and I didn't mix there, just acted as a design consultant) used an AVID ISIS shared storage system which allowed a great deal of collaboration among the various rooms.

The avid nexus is the newer generation of the isis. Like most avid products, I don't have an objection to their actual product. I freely trashed them for years, as they offered piss poor customer service, arrogant pricing buffoonery (with subscriptions for everyone), and a complimentary $50 phone call charge every time you have trouble with their hardware, which we all know never has any bugs. You pay $60K for a pair of HDX systems, upgrade to PT 11 then find out you can no longer play iTunes or youtube through your HDX converters. And they leave you high and dry for years having to supplement your system with Motu or Presonus or whatever converters if you want to run Logic, DP or Nuendo. They lie to their stockholders, get sued in a class action pissing contest, then get kicked off the NASDAQ, lay off several hundred of their technical staff (yet manage to keep their sales team perfectly intact). But wait... then you snag a quarter million dollar system, and all of a sudden they start buddying up to you. Eventually I figured out how to get in touch with their higher ranking support experts. It has slowly gotten better. But if 90% of the people on this site call them, they'll get a Indian of Phillipino support technician, who is really just going to create a case for you, and you can expect to get called back at the worst possible time, because they can't really even create a callback schedule.

Did you know the $2500 avid preamp is the exact same circuit that you find in a $100 m-box? Did you know that the only difference between the older Avid 8 pres and the newer avid 8 pres is the color of the front pannel? Yeah, avid has only ever stocked one preamp design.

...don't get me started on how they screwed numerous studios on hundred thousand dollar consoles when they ended support on the icon consoles.

...Or their bait-and-switch 'master classes' on their post audio consoles. Which I flew across the country to attend, only to find out they were pitching Pro Tools 11 to a room full of professionals who already had the damn software!!

At this point I should say that I'm not great fan of AVID or Protools. They cost a lot and they're a pain in the butt to work with. However, from the sound of it you want to attract big name clients and, if so, that's the sort of gear they expect you to have.

I think you're on to something that most home studio guys don't understand. Avid real target market is the multi-seat system users that rack up seven digits in integrated hardware solutions. You can't look at their consumer end stuff and say 'avid makes junk'. Because you're only seeing the tip of their iceberg. If you're trying to tie hundreds of audio peripherals to a camera network for a news station, a sportscasting hub, or a live-to-air satellite broadcast, you're probably going to be stuck with avid. They're very very good at providing a bunch of junk that all talks to itself for huge commercial enterprises. I don't think Pro Tools is anything special. But I think the way that Pro Tools interfaces with all of their other garbage has revolutionized the cinematic and broadcast industry.

I'd bit my lip and have a chat to the not so nice people at AVID.

Why bit your lip? Do avid reps meander through here? I couldn't imagine they'd pay much attention to a humble little home recording forum.

I'd also be talking to clients and potential clients about exactly what they expect from you and what they're willing to pay to make sure your business plan works.

Agreed. And hey....listening is what we do for a living right? No...seriously. Critical listening (to people) permeates all areas of any business field. I couldn't agree with you more.

In case you're interested, THIS is the place I mentioned doing consultancy for. I'd already retired at that stage but the Managing Director had worked for me previously and asked me to do a few days for her as a favour--some very nice Soho London lunches were a big lure. Six months ago I would have pointed you in Jo's direction for a chat but, alas, she sold out her share of the company a while back and is now living a life of leisure.

I took a good browse through that website. That looks like a fabulous studio. Just right to catch the sweet spot in the market. Not too big and over the top, but clearly clearly a talented competent team. I wouldn't put anyone under the misconception that we'll be able to match them at the launch - but I would aspire to at that level in 5-10 years. That business model looks stable inside and out...keep the expenses under control, keep the portfolio current, and don't over extend the resources. I hope they continue to do well for a long time.

 

[jkuehlin]

That's damn good!
If you don't mind...what city...or at least, what part of SC are you talking about?

I always had NC as a possible destination if I ever decide to leave the NY/NJ area....Ashville was great when I was there camping in my younger days. I hear that it has a pretty decent arts community now.

I live in Florence, but Darlington, Timmonsville, Marion, and Effingham are surrounding areas where you could build a post room for pennies on the dollar vs L.A. or N.Y. Adult illiteracy rate here is over 60% and the median household income is about $16K. So if you move into town and open up high tech industry down here, the local rednecks will treat you like a god.

Ashville is crazy beautiful as a city, quaint yet artsy and ornate as a town, but rolling in old money and upper class retirement accounts. Great for a music scene, probably not ideal for cinematic post studio. If you were a film audio guy, you would want to build the film studio in Wilmington, as they've cranked out over 300 big budget movie titles on the other side of the state. That's just not Ashvilles industry. But Asheville has excellent diversity of music influences. While the town itself is too small to support a creative arts community, the music is supplemented by an influx of upper class tourism, so there is enough seasonal work to live off of (though you won't get rich doing it).

 

[jkuehlin]

I don't have any personal experience of the Jupiter Callisto. The last audio post facility I had any involvement with (and I didn't mix there, just acted as a design consultant) used an AVID ISIS shared storage system which allowed a great deal of collaboration among the various rooms.

At this point I should say that I'm not great fan of AVID or Protools. They cost a lot and they're a pain in the butt to work with. However, from the sound of it you want to attract big name clients and, if so, that's the sort of gear they expect you to have. I'd bit my lip and have a chat to the not so nice people at AVID.

I'd also be talking to clients and potential clients about exactly what they expect from you and what they're willing to pay to make sure your business plan works.

In case you're interested, THIS is the place I mentioned doing consultancy for. I'd already retired at that stage but the Managing Director had worked for me previously and asked me to do a few days for her as a favour--some very nice Soho London lunches were a big lure. Six months ago I would have pointed you in Jo's direction for a chat but, alas, she sold out her share of the company a while back and is now living a life of leisure.

Hey Bobbsy...if you're still around, I've been experimenting with the s5 for a few months now. I have my first short infront of me since getting the console up and fully functional. Final delivery format is 7-1.

The dub was sent as a Nuendo file broken into music, ADR, SFX, and dialogue. They literally placed it in 4 track folders then called it a day. Its about 140 channels. Thankfully, the music was very nicely mixed to begin with. The orchestra is summed to single stem but that's ok, because the tracking was superb. The pads, drones, rhythmic loops etc... all on stereo stems as well. Everything .wav - no midi.

I was wondering if you have any idea how you would typically divide this up over a control surface? What goes where? lol....I mean...I'll figure it out, but if there's some sort of standard way of doing this, lemmie know!

 

[Bobbsy]

Well, I don't know of any standard way of laying stuff out (other than keeping the file groupings together). However, what IS normal is to make big use of VCAs/DCAs, i.e. creating basic mixes of categories like dialogue, ADR, Foley etc. then using the VCAs to mix this submixes together (if you see what I mean. You can always go back and change the balance of one section if it turns out necessary when you're combining everything but, for the most part, the final mix is carried out on just a few faders--and even these are usually automated to time code.

 

[jkuehlin]

Well, I don't know of any standard way of laying stuff out (other than keeping the file groupings together). However, what IS normal is to make big use of VCAs/DCAs, i.e. creating basic mixes of categories like dialogue, ADR, Foley etc. then using the VCAs to mix this submixes together (if you see what I mean. You can always go back and change the balance of one section if it turns out necessary when you're combining everything but, for the most part, the final mix is carried out on just a few faders--and even these are usually automated to time code.

Hey man, thanks for responding. I took a wild but educated guess and just split it up dialogue/adr and music on one side, then SFX and foley on the other. VCA groups in the center, though they'll have to be flexible because I don't think I'll know exactly what we need them for until we're actually rolling later today. I spent a few hours just sorting and organizing yesterday, and I don't think there's anything to subgroup, since the thing was summed and folded as far down it could go.

I'm curious to see what mechanism is used in other studios to manage mixes from scene to scene. Different mixer snapshots within different groups of scenes? Different saved/recalled mixes cues all together? Luckily we didn't have to split this one onto 2 stations. We can run it all from one computer so there really wasn't anything to sync. And I didn't see a compelling reason to have console automation chase Nuendo or vice versa, because the mixer is fully Euconized (in avid jargon that means its a daw controller as well as a console). Waiting for some calls back from California today...but I guess part of the learning curve is this trial-by-fire sort of experimentation. (I made sure we picked a project that didn't have any brutal deadlines for our first run).