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Reviewing Mixes Remotely What you should know about listening to your mix

By Colin Lechner

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In an ideal world, there would be no need for a remote mix. Once preliminary mixing was complete, I would invite you to come and sit in on the final mix at my mix stage, and we would work on completing your soundtrack together. Unfortunately, this is not always possible, and sometimes I must rely on my own experience to decide what aesthetic choices to make in your absence. I love all forms of audio-visual storytelling, and have studied thousands of movies and TV shows to learn how to aid story through sound. Any, and every, decision I make is done from the desire to make your film the best it can be. When mixing, my job is to create a soundtrack targeted at the “ideal” audience member. The sound should be so well suited to the picture that all manipulations of the sonic elements become transparent. Ultimately, the audience member simply experiences the film and remains unaware of the constructed nature of the soundtrack. To achieve such a high level of craftsmanship, monitoring practices must be observed and maintained. I mix your film on professional speakers that are meticulously calibrated to replicate the experience of a theatrical grade playback system. My mix stage has been acoustically treated, allowing my speakers to accurately reproduce frequencies, ensuring accurate and consistent playback of your film in all professional theatrical settings. After I deliver a mix to you and you are reviewing it on your own, it is important for you to take steps to ensure that you are able to make well-informed aesthetic decisions. The key to this is proper monitoring practice. Computer speakers are not good for reference monitoring because they do not reproduce all frequencies at a constant level. To make decisions with confidence you need to listen through a playback system with a relatively flat frequency response. Over-ear headphones are the simplest and most economic solution. Many high-end consumer grade headphones have frequency responses that embellish low frequencies to make music sound more appealing; when reviewing a film mix, this should be avoided. However, professional monitoring isn’t prohibitively expensive. The Sony MDR-7506 is the industry standard monitoring headphone and costs $100. Sennheiser, Shure, Behringer, and Audio-Technica all have headphones that can meet your listening requirements. Open-backed headphones reduce ear fatigue, but if background noise is an issue in your monitoring space, closed-back headphones might be the optimum choice. If more than one person needs to monitor the mix, headphone splitters offer a cheap solution. Typically, my system is calibrated so -20dB pink noise plays back from each speaker at 79dB. However, depending upon your project, I may calibrate to a different standard. Regardless of

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the exact level of calibration, all of my mixes are organized relative to the resting level of the dialogue track. Therefore, all other sounds play in relation to the pre-established dialogue level. Always keep this in mind when reviewing your mix. When you are ready to begin reviewing your mix, the first thing to do is set your volume level. To determine the appropriate playback level, select a sequence with dialogue. Turn the volume up until the dialogue level is a little louder than is comfortable. Once you have found this level, lower the volume until the dialogue becomes comfortable to listen to. This is the proper volume to review your mix. Do not change the volume during the review process. Remember, everything is mixed relative to the dialogue. Should you have any concerns regarding you mix, please let me know. Mix notes are extremely important to me because they are the way for you to clearly communicate your desires to me when we are not able to work on your project in the same space. To eliminate any guesswork and ambiguity, every note should be accompanied by a timestamp that corresponds to the timecode burn-in on the picture. This allows me to optimize my time to make the soundtrack fit your vision. Finally, it is important not to rush the review process. If time allows, it is best to listen to the mix multiple times and see if you still feel the same way about all of your notes. Often, once a person grows accustomed to something being a certain way, it can be difficult to accept a different version. Composers call this temp-lust. Allowing time for a change to evolve can provide more perspective upon judgment. Review a mix twice in one day, then let it sit and review it again the next day. I hope that you found this document helpful and reviewing the mix goes smoothly. If you have any questions regarding selecting headphones, or even setting up a more substantial monitoring system, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Colin Lechner Mobile: (719) 239-1315 E-mail: colin@raconteursound.com Website: www.raconteursound.com