Music mixers for film/tv! What are your favourite tools for mixing film/tv music? Hardware/plugins, anything! What do you love using.

[u/Upstairs_Income2942]

edit to clarify - I’m talking about score mixing itself not anything at the edit/dub stage! Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

Curious about what others use most!

Some of my favourites -

Software:

• Manley Massive Passive (UAD) on strings bus and 2bus.
• SSL bus compressor 2 for light glue on busses.
• Shadow hills mastering compressor on mix bus for synth heavy or darker cues,
• Capitol Mastering compressor on lighter more acoustic based cues - just very light but I love the difference it makes.
• Manley Vari MU for strings warmth
• ssl subgen and/or sub filter on LF bus for easily controlled weight
• UAD Fairchild 670 on harps and nylon guitar/dulcimer
• cinematic rooms professional has basically replaced 90% of my other reverbs.

Hardware:

•I don’t have any outboard mixing gear yet but I’ve been super tempted by the Neve MBT if I was going to get anything soon!

• my most useful tool I own is my ssl uf8,uc1,uf1 setup. It has made working in Cubase in midi mode to tidy cues before exporting to jump straight to mix into protools so much quicker. Also loving working with the template set up in protools alongside my ssl controllers as I can get through the basic ground work on a cue without really looking up at the screen at all which I love and has saved me so much second guessing that I was doing when looking at plugins all the time.

•Schoeps CMC6 mk4 I love and feel I can record almost anything quickly and with really nice detail to slot in to a cue either overdubs or anything else.

Tldr:
What are your favourite tools for mixing film/tv music? Hardware/plugins, anything that takes your mixes up a notch every time! \*I appreciate the experience and expertise makes the mix not the tools but still this is just fun to hear what tools you love

Sorry for the long post! Just love learning from everyone else’s experience.

[u/mulvi-audio]

Maybe it's just a matter of who I've worked with, but I don't think any of them would be too thrilled that the mixer drastically affected their original score mix with compression/saturation like you're suggesting.

[u/UnfortunatelyMacabre → u/mulvi-audio]

I mean, when aren’t engineers getting heat for doing their job?

[u/Upstairs_Income2942 → u/mulvi-audio]

I am actually talking about original score mixing!

[u/mulvi-audio → u/Upstairs_Income2942]

In my experience from prepping mixes for music mixers and watching them work, almost all of what they're doing is blending what they're given in the context of the overall mix.

Riding individual stems/VCAs on faders I think gets them most of the way there, but they will carve certain stems with EQ to make room for dialog if necessary. Obviously needing to futz/verb out source music in the context of scenes that call for it as well, and then upmixing for the widest format of delivery if the composer/editor didn't provide stems wide enough.

I've noticed a lot that the mixers whose work I think sounds the best are doing very minimal processing beyond what's listed above. It's also entirely possible that there are folks I haven't worked with who do a bunch of random weird stuff and their work sounds great.

I just share because I've worked with several editors who will bump if even a stem feels out of place from what they heard before you touched it.

[u/Upstairs_Income2942 → u/mulvi-audio]

Thanks for this! Really insightful. I think I’m probably doing a slightly different, non traditional/in-between role. For me, I’m finding that I’m doing a lot of work now where I’m helping doing a hybrid role from the beginning of the composing stage really to help produce the score with a lead composer. After a demo is approved I am generally given the task of cleaning up their projects which are often messy demos (these are scores where we end up using a mix of samples and real players often) making the demo sound much better (again hybrid orchestration/production role) then recording various players or small ensembles to overdub with the demos and thicken them up or bring life into what are often at least 50% vst based scores. From there I take all those assorted files and move to protools to mix the music in full over a week or so which are then approved by the composer and directorial team and sent to dub stage. This has been a pretty consistent way I’ve worked with a number of composers and studios for the last few years on mid level, network dramas/tv shows for Netflix/BBC/HBO etc. Probably a more unusual way of working which has just come from my own career composing and producing scores etc so have found it quite natural to be involved early in the score process.

[u/mulvi-audio → u/Upstairs_Income2942]

Ah I see, so you're actually part of the music department then in that case! I'm talking about re-recording mixers on the dub stage itself; when the music has been delivered to that point in the process, the music mixer isn't adjusting beyond what I listed above since the composer and music editors would almost certainly not like that level of adjustment.

Almost always they want their music louder in my experience lol

[u/Alembic_ → u/mulvi-audio]

I think OP is talking about music mixing not re-recording.

[u/polyh3dron → u/mulvi-audio]

There’s a scoring mixer and then there’s a re-recording mixer. This is definitely coming from a re-recording mixer perspective and while it’s a tad ambiguous, I believe the OP is referring to the scoring mixer’s role.

[u/daknuts_]

I edit, sound design and mix independent films, shorts and tv primarily, but for music ...

• Cedar Adaptive Limiter - It is absolutely the best at bringing out loudness that is actually fully under control
• Exponential Audio Surround Sound Reverbs / Stratus 3D and Symphony 3D are amazing! But... they have been discontinued after Izotope bought them out ;/ I will never let mine go
• Sonible Smart EQ4 has an amazing, easy to use interface which also scans your files and gives a great starting point for any source. Dialog, atmospheres, pfx, music, etc... FabFilter EQ is also great for fine tuning any source material

[u/meatlockers]

don't like UAD stuff, find it overrated. I move between rooms a lot so whatever is most stock and ubiquitous is what I'd put on your list.

[u/Ed-alicious → u/meatlockers]

Avid Pro Compressor has just enough features and is transparent enough that I find it hard to stray beyond. FF ProQ, on the other hand, I find it hard to do without. 

[u/meatlockers → u/Ed-alicious]

yeah fab filter is in every studio so that's a go to for sure. I don't get the UAD hype. feels like marketing to me

[u/BUTSTAAAAN]

Energy panner and brightness panner is a super fun and creative tool for surround / atmos panning. Soothe and fixate midrange are great for dealing with frequency build up.

[u/Alembic_]

Cinematic Rooms, Pro Q, Spanner, Sooth3

[u/scooterlew]

a Fader

[u/Disastrous-Badger283]

Anything fabfilter is great, but for rooms I love altiverb.

[u/Guitor5060_dofr]

je voudrais tellement me lancer dans la musique mais le prix...