Digital Video - April 2008 - (Page 36) AUDIO SOLUTIONS BY JAY ROSE MIXOLOGY METHODS BY JAY ROSE MIXING IN THE BOX A udio expert Jay Rose is releasToday, even blockbusters are mixed ing a new edition of his popwithout mixers. What looks like a big ular “Producing Great console on many Hollywood dub Sound” (Focal Press). Along with revised stages doesn’t really handle audio at sections on getting better results from all: it’s a controller, talking to one or in-camera recording, double-system more computers that actually do the and post software, he’s added digitalmix. Some setups use specialized friendly narrative and feature film techcomputers that emulate big analog niques throughout the book. “The walls mixers, working with digital players between film and video are collapsing,” that emulate 35mm interlock transRose explains. “The past few years have ports. But the newer trend is to use been very exciting: even relatively simexactly the same software that built ple video projects now can use methods and edited the track. This means developed over years of Hollywood there’s no audio signal — analog or soundtracks.” digital — until the final output; all the The book is aimed at producers, prior steps are just super-fast data directors, and videographer/editors as manipulations. Engineers call it mixwell as sound specialists. It has step-bying in the box. step instructions and professional tips Mix automation systems record your finger movements as Two advantages to mixing in for the entire audio process, from pre- rubber band fades on the timeline, while existing fades the box are simplicity and cost. move other knobs on the control surface or on-screen mixer. production through shooting to editing Those big mixing consoles can cost and mixing. But it also aims at a deeper understanding. Here’s a more than a hundred thousand dollars, and a lot of that goes into preview condensed from the chapters on hardware and mixing. expensive custom engineering. The primary disadvantage — We didn’t have room for some of the figures on these pages, but assuming computers and software that are up to the job — is user you can see them at www.dplay.com. interface. Traditional consoles evolved as they did because they’re easy to work with. The ones in some Hollywood dub stages might look more complicated than a jet plane, but they’re mostly the WHY MIXING IS HARDER THAN CUTTING same basic knobs repeated for a large number of tracks. Even Even basic sound mixes can be complicated, from the computsmall analog mixers follow that design. The most important coner’s point of view. It has to remember how loud you want each trols are the volume sliders, one for each sound source; you move track, something that’s constantly changing in a good mix. It has a knob away from you to turn the volume up, and pull it back to to multiply individual audio sample data by factors for each volbring the volume down. Now that’s an intuitive user interface. ume change. It has to add these multiplications together, combining data for dialog and music and sound effects, creating new samples for each output channel. A simple TV track might ON-SCREEN MIXERS have four or five tracks going to two outputs. A theatrical film The typical rubber band volume lines in most NLEs and audio can have dozens of tracks playing to 18 different submixes and programs are too cumbersome for a successful mix: even a simsix outputs. ple three-second fade — which would take exactly three seconds It has to do all these computations in real-time, for every to perform on a mixing console — requires placing points and track, for each digital sample (every 1/48,000 second). Then it has drawing a line. If you want the fade’s speed to change for artisto do it all again for the next set of samples. And that’s just the tic reasons, it can take a lot of points to get it right. So some years mixing. Equalization, compression, reverb, and other processes ago, programmers started drawing pictures of simple mixing conuse more complicated math, with much more computation on soles on the screen. They show sliders and pan pots, which you each sample. Until recently, desktop computers couldn’t do it all. can nudge with a mouse to move their knobs. Under the hood, Mixing was either slow and off-line or limited in capability, or the software is drawing rubber bands based on your movements. required expensive DSP cards (Digital Signal Processing) helping If you then look at the timeline window you can see them. But the computer. Not long ago, you could do more elaborate mixes with one of these on-screen faders, any three-second fade — no on a $300 analog unit than on a $3,000 computer. matter how complex — takes just three seconds. It’s a vast 36 dv april 2008 www.dv.com http://www.dplay.com http://www.dv.com
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