Remastering

[Mark Bedingfield]

Does anybody have any links to sites that describe remastering
techniques from mono/stereo to 5.1 etc? Just curious as to how The
Battle of Britain was remastered from Mono to DTS mostly.

Thanks

Mark

[Netmask]

Find a site that tells how film soundtracks are laid and mixed. A quick
answer is if all of the individual sound elements of a film mix (not just
the 'final') have been stored then a credible new final mix can be achieved
to match whatever the current sound fashion is. The majority of elements for
any movie are recorded mono, especially dialog. Sound backgrounds are
normally in stereo, either MS or ORTF. What we perceive in the theatre as
"stereo" should really be called "laterally displaced mono" in other words
individual sounds are panned into place. If you mix equal amounts of dialog
into the left and right channels the sound will appear to come from exactly
in front of you where ever you are sitting - an important commercial
consideration in large cinemas. So remastering from mono to 5.1 involves
relaying all of the elements of the sound track and then remixing in a 5.1
monitoring environment and placing the sounds appropriately - I have skimmed
over a lot and made a lot of generalisations but basically that's what
happens.
(retired film mixer)

"Mark Bedingfield" <mark@nomorespamplease.computercom.com.au> wrote in
message news:e5aQd.161144$K7.104334@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Does anybody have any links to sites that describe remastering techniques
> from mono/stereo to 5.1 etc? Just curious as to how The Battle of Britain
> was remastered from Mono to DTS mostly.
>
> Thanks
>
> Mark

[Michael]

Most dialogue comes from the centre channel rather than mixing equally into
L & R channels with 5.1 though, doesn't it?

"Netmask" <netmask56@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:bjbQd.161252$K7.38503@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> If you mix equal amounts of dialog into the left and right channels the
> sound will appear to come from exactly in front of you where ever you are
> sitting - an important commercial consideration in large cinemas.

[Matthew Kirkcaldie]

In article <421143b1$0$1025$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
"Michael" <quadhammerNO@SPICEDHAM@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Most dialogue comes from the centre channel rather than mixing equally into
> L & R channels with 5.1 though, doesn't it?

Yes, but the comment about L+R was in reference to a stereo mix, where
there is no centre channel.

MK.

[Netmask]

Yes and no depends on the mixing console, how new or ancient! - in the
majority of sound mixes for film the dialog is mixed to the center, that is
equal amounts are fed to the front left and front right - this is regardless
of whether there is a center speaker or not, the process will automatically
place it there in encoding. If you are mixing on a specific physically laid
out dub suite in 5.1 then of course you can assign whatever you like to
"center" it all depends on the way the studio is equipped. What you actually
do is say the dialog is on faders 1, 2 and 3 you set the pan knob for
center. What I used to do was 'smear' it just a tad to match the image but
we are talking about no more than 1.5 to 2db either side of dead center. Now
the physiology of hearing is such that if you mix equal amounts of energy to
both L and R speakers the sound will be perceived as coming from a point
directly in front of you. If you want a "Voice Of God" effect (depends a lot
on the local acoustics) you arrange 4 speakers in a square, you sit in the
middle and feed a mono signal of god into all 4 speakers - voila! the
perception is the sound is above you but acoustics do play a role... Of
course there are always exceptions - in the early days pf cinemascope actors
along with their voices were placed hard left and hard right - ever seen on
a 4:3 TV presentation of The Robe, the infamous talking noses on the edge of
frame! If you have significant dialog say hard left then half the audience
is going to have trouble hearing it and will experience a slight time delay
and vice versa hence the technological and commercial compromise that is
part of modern film making. This will change in the future as more releases
are produced for smallish home theaters where these cinema problems don't
exist. I am not sure but I have the feeling the writer of the first letter
might have thought there was a "mono to 5.1" converter as piece of hardware
or software? I wish it was that simple!!!

"Matthew Kirkcaldie" <m.kirkcaldie@removethis.unsw.edu.au> wrote in message
news:m.kirkcaldie-60F56C.11500215022005@tomahawk.comms.unsw.edu.au.. .
> In article <421143b1$0$1025$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
> "Michael" <quadhammerNO@SPICEDHAM@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Most dialogue comes from the centre channel rather than mixing equally
>> into
>> L & R channels with 5.1 though, doesn't it?
>
> Yes, but the comment about L+R was in reference to a stereo mix, where
> there is no centre channel.
>
> MK.

[Mark Bedingfield]

Netmask wrote:
> Yes and no depends on the mixing console, how new or ancient! - in the
> majority of sound mixes for film the dialog is mixed to the center, that is
> equal amounts are fed to the front left and front right - this is regardless
> of whether there is a center speaker or not, the process will automatically
> place it there in encoding. If you are mixing on a specific physically laid
> out dub suite in 5.1 then of course you can assign whatever you like to
> "center" it all depends on the way the studio is equipped. What you actually
> do is say the dialog is on faders 1, 2 and 3 you set the pan knob for
> center. What I used to do was 'smear' it just a tad to match the image but
> we are talking about no more than 1.5 to 2db either side of dead center. Now
> the physiology of hearing is such that if you mix equal amounts of energy to
> both L and R speakers the sound will be perceived as coming from a point
> directly in front of you. If you want a "Voice Of God" effect (depends a lot
> on the local acoustics) you arrange 4 speakers in a square, you sit in the
> middle and feed a mono signal of god into all 4 speakers - voila! the
> perception is the sound is above you but acoustics do play a role... Of
> course there are always exceptions - in the early days pf cinemascope actors
> along with their voices were placed hard left and hard right - ever seen on
> a 4:3 TV presentation of The Robe, the infamous talking noses on the edge of
> frame! If you have significant dialog say hard left then half the audience
> is going to have trouble hearing it and will experience a slight time delay
> and vice versa hence the technological and commercial compromise that is
> part of modern film making. This will change in the future as more releases
> are produced for smallish home theaters where these cinema problems don't
> exist. I am not sure but I have the feeling the writer of the first letter
> might have thought there was a "mono to 5.1" converter as piece of hardware
> or software? I wish it was that simple!!!

Nope, not that silly. What I was wondering is how the panning in the
Battle of Britain (and other older sources) is achieved? Would they have
the original tapes of all the effects, music and vocals? Or did they
have to extract it from a compiled mono source? If it is the latter then
it is an amazing feat of audio engineering. The panning is awesome, and
the sound of the merlin engines is as good and throaty as the original
(mono) movie.

Mark

[Michael Callaghan]

"Michael" <quadhammerNO@SPICEDHAM@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:421143b1$0$1025$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...
> Most dialogue comes from the centre channel rather than mixing equally
into
> L & R channels with 5.1 though, doesn't it?
>
If you switch your amp to stereo only and listen - you will find that what
netmask has said is right (unless you want to be pedantic)

At the end of the day dialog etc. comes out of the center channel if you are
using a stereo signal (L + R only) processed through a prologic (or above)
amp .... the processor uses the info from both left and right channels and
whatever is the same sends them to the center channel (I have skipped some
stuff about frequecy related to the surround channels).

If you are using 5.1 (or above) this "processing" doesn't happen as the
"actual", "intended" or "real" center info is encoded discreately (totally
and absolutley)into the center channel.

Chops

[Michael]

"Michael Callaghan" <mcal@SPUAM.deakin.eud.au> wrote in message
news:4211551a$2@earth...
>
> "Michael" <quadhammerNO@SPICEDHAM@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:421143b1$0$1025$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...
>> Most dialogue comes from the centre channel rather than mixing equally
> into
>> L & R channels with 5.1 though, doesn't it?
>>
> If you switch your amp to stereo only and listen - you will find that what
> netmask has said is right (unless you want to be pedantic)

Well at the risk of being labelled so, that's not a good way to test it, as
the centre channel is downmixed into L & R when you switch to stereo. An
easier way is just to turn the power off to your centre poweramp, or unplug
the centre speaker. Anyway, I just meant that in a large cinema, as Netmask
was talking about, the problem of imaging by using L & R speakers has be
helped out by the centre channel.

> If you are using 5.1 (or above) this "processing" doesn't happen as the
> "actual", "intended" or "real" center info is encoded discreately (totally
> and absolutley)into the center channel.

Yeah, I realise the centre is discrete, just wondered how much dialogue went
into L & R too. Netmask has answered that with an interesting post.

[Netmask]

There may well be a history page on how they did it. Panning either manually
with the image or using Protools to automate it is no big deal just a slow
laborious grind!!! Normally because of space and economics these days all
the individual elements are not archived, unfortunately, but there should
be a collection of 'premix' backgrounds, effects, music and dialog that
could have been gotten to and broken up into new elements for a new final
mix. The biggest mix I have done had 40 tracks that had to be premixed
basically down to 8. Typically you would have a music premix, an effects pm,
a background pm (tweetybirds, constant outdoor effects etc, and a dialog
mix. On some productions the producer would have a favourite dialog mixer
person and another to do effects etc. Very complex process, time expensive
and many many people working cooperatively, well most of the time!
For a multichannel release such as 5.1 or 6.1 or 10.1 for that matter you
have to have the right acoustic mixing environment with monitors suitably
placed and the outputs of your console in the case of 5.1 will go
simultaneously to an encoder and to separate tracks either on a multitrack
digital recorder or hard drive system - there are many options and different
approaches by Mixing Suites around the world. When it comes to vocals of old
popular songs from a particular era there are specialist archive libraries
that supply the industry - some of course have been re-released
commercially.

try posting a note at rec.arts.movies.production.sound
where a lot of professional sound mixers and location recordists hang out


"Mark Bedingfield" <mark@nomorespamplease.computercom.com.au> wrote in
message news:UncQd.161290$K7.74087@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Netmask wrote:
>> Yes and no depends on the mixing console, how new or ancient! - in the
>> majority of sound mixes for film the dialog is mixed to the center, that
>> is equal amounts are fed to the front left and front right - this is
>> regardless of whether there is a center speaker or not, the process will
>> automatically place it there in encoding. If you are mixing on a specific
>> physically laid out dub suite in 5.1 then of course you can assign
>> whatever you like to "center" it all depends on the way the studio is
>> equipped. What you actually do is say the dialog is on faders 1, 2 and 3
>> you set the pan knob for center. What I used to do was 'smear' it just a
>> tad to match the image but we are talking about no more than 1.5 to 2db
>> either side of dead center. Now the physiology of hearing is such that if
>> you mix equal amounts of energy to both L and R speakers the sound will
>> be perceived as coming from a point directly in front of you. If you want
>> a "Voice Of God" effect (depends a lot on the local acoustics) you
>> arrange 4 speakers in a square, you sit in the middle and feed a mono
>> signal of god into all 4 speakers - voila! the perception is the sound is
>> above you but acoustics do play a role... Of course there are always
>> exceptions - in the early days pf cinemascope actors along with their
>> voices were placed hard left and hard right - ever seen on a 4:3 TV
>> presentation of The Robe, the infamous talking noses on the edge of
>> frame! If you have significant dialog say hard left then half the
>> audience is going to have trouble hearing it and will experience a slight
>> time delay and vice versa hence the technological and commercial
>> compromise that is part of modern film making. This will change in the
>> future as more releases are produced for smallish home theaters where
>> these cinema problems don't exist. I am not sure but I have the feeling
>> the writer of the first letter might have thought there was a "mono to
>> 5.1" converter as piece of hardware or software? I wish it was that
>> simple!!!
>
> Nope, not that silly. What I was wondering is how the panning in the
> Battle of Britain (and other older sources) is achieved? Would they have
> the original tapes of all the effects, music and vocals? Or did they have
> to extract it from a compiled mono source? If it is the latter then it is
> an amazing feat of audio engineering. The panning is awesome, and the
> sound of the merlin engines is as good and throaty as the original (mono)
> movie.
>
> Mark

[Michael]

I wouldn't think there'd be too many big cinemas without centre speakers
now, would there? Speaking of which, it's interesting to turn your centre
speaker off on your processor and sit in the middle. A lot of people have
better floorstanders than their centre and if they image well enough it can
sound better than using a dedicated centre. Of course the people on the
sides might not think so.

"Matthew Kirkcaldie" <m.kirkcaldie@removethis.unsw.edu.au> wrote in message
news:m.kirkcaldie-60F56C.11500215022005@tomahawk.comms.unsw.edu.au.. .
> In article <421143b1$0$1025$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
> "Michael" <quadhammerNO@SPICEDHAM@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Most dialogue comes from the centre channel rather than mixing equally
>> into
>> L & R channels with 5.1 though, doesn't it?
>
> Yes, but the comment about L+R was in reference to a stereo mix, where
> there is no centre channel.

[Michael Callaghan]

> Well at the risk of being labelled so, that's not a good way to test it,
as
> the centre channel is downmixed into L & R when you switch to stereo.

Oops, sorry, I was assuming your amp had an analogue direct switch or
similar.

> Yeah, I realise the centre is discrete, just wondered how much dialogue
went
> into L & R too.

Well in that case just unplug the center .... with 5.1 you'll find that it's
not much at all, with analogue stereo signals its much more.

Netmask has answered that with an interesting post.
>
>
Cool

Chops

[Netmask]

I didn't mean to imply that there are theatres or dubbing suites without
centre speakers (unless they a really very old and very small) - I was
discussing the physiology of hearing and image placement from the
perspective of a sound mixer.

On home systems the sad fact is that in normal sized living rooms all that
is needed to perceive 'stereo' is a separation of around 7 to 8db. This was
the mathematical basis of the old Sansui QS 4 channel sound system that was
latter sophisticated by Ray Dolby. I have an old QS encoder and a separate
decoder and it does a credible job in decoding Dolby Stereo. for references
go to the AES web site and do a search (Audio Engineering Society). You will
find a copy of the mathematical models for the development of multichannel
sound in all their variations.

"Michael" <quadhammerNO@SPICEDHAM@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:421166c9$0$1998$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...
>I wouldn't think there'd be too many big cinemas without centre speakers
>now, would there? Speaking of which, it's interesting to turn your centre
>speaker off on your processor and sit in the middle. A lot of people have
>better floorstanders than their centre and if they image well enough it can
>sound better than using a dedicated centre. Of course the people on the
>sides might not think so.
>
> "Matthew Kirkcaldie" <m.kirkcaldie@removethis.unsw.edu.au> wrote in
> message
> news:m.kirkcaldie-60F56C.11500215022005@tomahawk.comms.unsw.edu.au.. .
>> In article <421143b1$0$1025$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
>> "Michael" <quadhammerNO@SPICEDHAM@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Most dialogue comes from the centre channel rather than mixing equally
>>> into
>>> L & R channels with 5.1 though, doesn't it?
>>
>> Yes, but the comment about L+R was in reference to a stereo mix, where
>> there is no centre channel.
>
>

[Michael]

Yeah, it does, but I use the digital connection so my processor does the
decoding and not the player. Out of curiosity, do you use the 6 analogue
cables instead?

"Michael Callaghan" <mcal@SPUAM.deakin.eud.au> wrote in message
news:42116a42$1@earth...
> Oops, sorry, I was assuming your amp had an analogue direct switch or
> similar.