Posting CineSymphony

BY GARY BALDASSARI

Surround sound is nothing to be afraid of. Once you get past the initial phobias, it's actually very easy to do. There is so much space in the surround mixing environment that the old EQ and compression techniques can be scrapped for a much easier method: mic placement. You can start the production with placement of microphones specifically with surround in mind and design a microphone grid throughout the session accordingly. Or you can record the same way you have always done and situate the instruments in the mix perspective by panning the instrument or voice, creating delay and reverb, and placing the collective sound likewise.

For the Elmer Bernstein concert, Michael Morgan's Decca Tree arrangement and the surround mics were all panned hard to sides, with the center mic of the tree panned to the middle.

We were scheduled to post at the Avid video sweet at Bruno White Entertainment, which lacked any standard post audio equipment. We decided that if we were going to do state-of-the-art  and processing, we'd have to do it guerrilla style.

Everything that we would need, we brought in ourselves: the original TASCAM DA-88, the Cranesong Spider class A mixing console, an SRS CSE-07 and SRS CSD-07 Circle Surround encoder and decoder, a TC Electronic M5000, its Tool Box, and MD2 multi-dynamics software, and four Tannoy i6MP powered loudspeakers speakers.

It took us an hour to install and calibrate the equipment. We used a DPA Microphone 4004 mic and the built-in revolving pink noise generator on the SRS CSD-07 decoder to balance the four speakers. (Our belief was that we had such a strong phantom center that we did not need the center speakers.)


The Tannoy i6MP dual concentric loudspeaker is a contractor product, not a portable studio reference monitor, but it uses the same drivers as the Tannoy System 600 studio monitor and offers the same 90-degree conical dispersion pattern.

The surround mix was achieved using the same Cranesong Spider that Mike used to record the concert. The only difference was that we rigged it for surround sound, with the four discrete outputs feeding the SRS encoder.

Van Wezel Hall is very dry, so we used the Big Blue Hall of the TC M5000 in an envelope set at 11 percent with a 2.2-second reverb time and no modulation. That was sent into the MD-2 multi dynamics program with a higher compression ratio and lower threshold set above 1.6 kHz to squeeze more high frequencies into the broadcast. This increased the presence of the distant miking technique. My experience thus far has been that MD2 from the TC M5000 or DBMAX or an MD3 from a TC DB-8 or System 6000 works synergistically with the SRS Circle Surround encoder. The only difference is that the older TC system performs its function on the encoded stereo stream, while the newer system can control the individual inputs of each Circle Surround encoding input. The encoded and squeezed stereo signal edits without phase flaws or artifacts.

We mixed the sections of the show that were used in three hours and the layback took two hours. Very infrequently did we touch anything on the Cranesong Spider or MD2. The reason was that the Florida West Coast Symphony played magnificently and Mike Morgan placed the microphones perfectly to capture the conductor's chart.

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About the Author:

 


Gary Baldassari
Gary Baldassari is a studio, live sound, and broadcast recording engineer with particular expertise in surround sound recording and broadcast audio. Gary is also a consultant for DPA.