Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/964731
www.postmagazine.com 29 POST APRIL 2018 Broadcast networks may ask that com- mercials be delivered with 5.1 surround mixes, but is the stereo mix still the king? It's nearly a guarantee that every house- hold with a television is able to listen to a stereo mix. Sure, 5.1 surround setups are common, but not every home has one. And what about getting an on-air mix approved by the ad agency? Creatives and clients not present at the studio mix session are listening to and commenting on the stereo mix of a spot, not the 5.1 mix. Do these factors influence how mixers approach broadcast commercials? Post asks several leading mixers — who specialize in mixing commercials for broadcast — to weigh-in on what's happening in the industry. They discuss delivera- bles and workflow solutions, and share details of the high-profile spots they've recently mixed in 5.1 surround for broadcast. SONIC UNION Mixer Paul Weiss at Sonic Union in New York, NY (http://sonicunion.com/) recently worked with ad agency McCann New York on Verizon's Answering the Call, which aired during the 2018 Super Bowl. The spot features candid conversations between first responders and the people they rescued. Weiss and the Sonic Union team had the all- important job of recording these real phone calls. "When the order came up for what we were asked to do, it made us all stop and brainstorm about the best way to approach this," says Weiss. "We had to connect the first responder to the person they rescued. Then, we had two directors on the line, sometimes in two different places. There were agency people, sometimes here in the studio and sometimes at the edit or at the agency. They all needed to be connected, and we couldn't miss a second of anybody's conversation." After testing several ways of conferencing numer- ous people, Weiss found that Skype offered the best sound quality. "These phone conversations needed to have audio that's usable on-air. Skype is all digital, all in the computer and the quality was perfect. It's exactly what you're hearing on the phone. And you can conference up to 25 people," he says. Though Weiss ironed out all the details of recording the conversations on his end, there were still variables out of his control, such as what phones the calls were made on (landlines versus cell phones) and how loud the people spoke. Weiss used iZotope RX 6 to help clean up any imperfec- tions in the audio, like distortion, clicks and plosives. He says, "These calls are supposed to sound like they're coming through the phone and so there was a bit of leeway there but we wanted to smooth everything out and match EQ, all for the sake of clarity. iZotope's De-crackle and De-click saved us from most of the problems on the recordings." With the dialogue all set, Weiss added music to the 60-second spot and created a 5.1 surround mix. When mixing for broadcast, Weiss says 5.1 mixes are standard practice so his Pro Tools HD 12.8.3 tem- plate is set up for 5.1 surround mixing. His template allows him to easily switch between monitoring the 5.1 surround mix and the Lt/Rt stereo fold down. He runs both through the TC Electronic LM6N Loudness Radar to make sure they're within the -24 LKFS broadcast spec. At the end of a session, Weiss supplies clients with a 5.1 mix and the Lt/Rt fold down, and also a 'web mix' that is typically 5 dB louder than the broadcast mix. While mixing broadcast commercials in 5.1 sur- round is standard, Weiss still prefers monitoring in stereo for the majority of the mix session. "I like to get the stereo mix sounding great on my nearfield monitors, and then I'll pop on the 5.1 mix to see what's happening there. I will also play the mix through the stereo TV speakers to make sure ev- erything is coming through the mix the way I want it to. Whether a spot is going to air or it's going to the Web, I'm going to do the best job that I can and make it sound the best that I can," concludes Weiss. ELE VEN According to mixer/sound designer Ben Freer at Eleven in Santa Monica, CA (www.elevensound. com), not all the spots he mixes for broadcast are mixed in 5.1. "Lately, there's been more stereo than 5.1," he says. "Oftentimes, we're doing a stereo mix because it translates to going online at the same time. The clients can use the same mix if they want to, for broadcast and then online." Another factor is what is actually playing in the spot. If it's just music and voiceover, chances are the client will forgo a 5.1 mix. But every session they do is built in their Pro Tools 12.8 template, which is set- up for 5.1. "We always ask if the spot is going to be in 5.1 or not. I'd say about 75 percent of the time I'm still making a stereo mix. Whether it's 5.1 or stereo, any mix we do for broadcast meets the CALM Act specs of -24 LKFS, and for any online mix we'll take that broadcast mix and crank it up," says Freer. When mixing in 5.1 — as he did for Publicis Worldwide's Walmart spot called The Box (Melissa McCarthy) that aired during the 90th Academy Awards ceremony — Freer likes to monitor the 5.1 mix while he works and then check the Lt/Rt fold down mix periodically throughout the session. Freer uses the Waves M360 Surround Manager & Mixdown plug-in to fold down his 5.1 mix into stereo Lt/Rt. He says, "The nice thing with our set up is that I can quickly tap a button and listen to the downmix. I can also hear the mix on actual TV speakers. We want to make sure the mix is translat- ing from the 5.1 to the Lt/Rt, and also translating on the stereo TV speakers." In The Box spot, actress/singer Keala Settle (who B Sonic Union used iZotope RX 6 to clean up audio for Verizon's Answering the Call spot.