Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546135
C I N E M A A U D I O S O C I E T Y. O R G 41 The other part is that a well-planned Atmos mix improves all your other versions, too. The LCR and sub are consistent across every format and rarely change—theatrical Atmos, 7.1, 5.1, except for IMAX (but there is a separate workflow to generate IMAX from Atmos). It's the surrounds and the immersive layer where the versions differ. The soundtrack tends to get a bit heavy in the surrounds when folding down, so I like to balance the weight back toward the screen while creating custom 7.1 and 5.1 print masters in a deliberate, listened-to process—not an automatic downmix. Dennis Sands CAS: I've aligned my monitoring to the Atmos format, so I'm always thinking spatially even when I'm not delivering a full Atmos mix. If I could, I'd do the whole mix using objects—they can really create great definition in a mix. I don't typically use the overhead channels in the beds, though. I've found it can make the whole thing sound smaller for some reason, and a bit blurred. If I'm using the overheads, it's always with object placements. The reality is I'm limited by how many objects I'm allowed to allocate based on the I/O of the re-recording stage—dialogue and effects need their object count as well. Michael Keeley CAS: On projects where I serve as both composer and re-recording mixer, one of the greatest advantages is being able to make creative decisions much earlier in the process. When I write a cue, I'm already hearing it in three-dimensional space. Because I compose directly within my Dolby Atmos template, spatial choices become part of the writing itself. A synth texture can wrap around the audience, a percussion hit can feel physically present in the room, and an intimate piano can occupy its own precise space without competing with dialogue or other elements. Rather than trying to create that dimensionality later in the mix, it is built into the composition from the very beginning. Walk us through your prep. How do you plan a music mix before you start? David: I have what I call an Atmos planner—a detailed spreadsheet that maps out all 118 dynamic objects and the beds before we ever hit the mix stage. The full soundtrack is planned this way. But for music specifically, every lead vocal gets its own object (or shared objects if voices are far enough apart in time), and every principal orchestral stem channel has pre-assigned objects as well—front, back, overhead— each one placed and sized in advance. The music reverbs can live as beds or objects depending on the number of allocations I need, again, planned in advance, along with other music stems like most percussion, bass, and miscellaneous tracks. On a heavy musical like Moana, I was given 19+ 7.1 stems from the scoring stage. All the LFE went to the music bed. The orchestral stems became objects—high strings, low strings, ethnic percussion, keys, guitars, synthesizers, ethnic woodwinds—each placed in a custom array I'd designed before we started. The original song orchestra, which is recorded separately but in the same space as the score orchestra with the same 19+ stem layout, was planned the David Fluhr CAS