Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/713016
38 S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Were there any difficulties with clarity of the lyrics given the heavily stylized processing used on many of the music numbers in order to achieve a particular genre or period style? Jon: It was critically important for the comedy to have the lyrics of the songs be intelligible. Once or twice, we had a vocal stem that had a vocal effect rendered into it like a short plate reverb with pre-delay or a tight slap delay that felt very much like the style of music production that was being referenced, but it ended up negatively affecting the intelligibility of the vocals to a point where we reverted back to the unmastered, dry vocal stem, and then re-created the pop music-style limiting and compression [i.e., lots of both] and vocal effect, but with special attention paid to the clarity of the lyrics. Were the mastering styles of any of the music genres a problem? Mastering is very important in pop music, especially with the "loudness wars." We've had dynamics all but mastered out of pop music now. The stereo mixes of the songs were mastered for iTunes every week, so the stems went through the same mastering process to maintain the same sound. The first thing I'd do on every track would be to clip gain down the stems by 8 dB or so, because music mastered to -0.1 dBFS played at unity is just far too loud for a TV mix. In addition, pop music is mixed and mastered for a specific format and specific listening environments, and that's not always what will play best on broadcast TV. It was pretty common to tweak the EQ of a track to get a little extra definition in the low mids or take the edge off a particularly bright vocal to make the transitions between musical numbers and produc- tion dialogue not too dramatic of a shift. The transitions in and out of musical num- bers were often used to make a shift in the focus of the audience jumping in and out of Rebecca Bunch's head. How did you work those sections to ensure that convention was met and balance of apparent volume between music and dialogue was tempered? Usually, the songs represented little breaks with reality for the characters, moments that no one else in the story was [a part of]. The transitions in and out needed to be smooth, of course, but the thing that was easiest to lose track of was the difference in level going back into a dialogue scene from a loud and proud crescendo. Some of the songs build to a pretty bombastic out, so transitioning back into conversa- tional dialogue could sometimes be a big drop. We always did a pass on small stereo speakers at 70 dB SPL or so, because you really get a better sense of the dynamics of the show at a lower level on speakers with less fidelity. Everything sounds or highlight a moment. Then, we just accepted that it was a case-by-case thing. Comedy writers can be very sensitive to anything that obscures or even comes close to their dialogue, so we had to be sensitive of that as well. For the most part, all the humor they want in the show is contained in the written word, so embellishing with sound cues doesn't always go over too well. But, there are times that a well-timed sound effect bumps up the joke a notch, so we did get some choice moments to play here and there. Eric: On the SFX side, we always try to ride the line between warm and natural, with a touch of funny thrown in. We love to do cool design verbs and delays when needed. As an example, there would be flashbacks and slow-motion shots. With the musical numbers, we went through a few different mindsets. The first was to fill out the musical numbers with sound design and backgrounds—making them full and fun. As the season went on, we started pulling back more into music video land, adding only a few SFX per musical piece [while] trying not to have too much "air" in the musical numbers, as that can sound like unwanted noise at times. Eventually, we ended up giving each musical number just the right amount of sound for what the piece was trying to achieve—whether it was a Disney feel or a '90s rap battle. Erin Offin, SFX re-recording mixer, enjoying Cannes.