# How long to final mix and stem?



## Ed (May 9, 2010)

I was given a final cut of the film where I have over an hours worth of music in it (its almost wall to wall) last week and I had to mix and stem all cues in a week but also add stuff to scenes they changed and in one case they significantly changed the scene so my music needs a lot of changes. If they had told me before I could have made the cue more interesting rather than just hacking it to pieces but now it will just have to work as it is even though it doesn't work as well as it did. sigh! I've been on 3-4 hours sleep for the past 3 days now trying to get it done. They are mixing Monday and Tuesday. I will make it, just. They have all 4 Reels of music and are only missing Reel 5 which isn't that long, I just feel like I'm going nuts. I've never been this stressed and fatigued before! The sound editor wanted to "prep" today for mixing tomorrow and when I sent him some emails saying Reel 5 would be late he didn't write back despite being talkative before, so I assume he isn't happy about it. Oh well, they don't really have a choice.

So my question is, to those that have done a feature how long does it take you to mix and stem stuff? Not counting having to re edit cues to fit of course but if you have a story about that I'd be interested in hearing as well


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## Hannes_F (May 9, 2010)

Final cut to delivery one week? I wonder why you let them do this to you.

(I agree this is not helpful in the situation itself but as a trend composers allow others to treat them like wiping cloths. The last is bitten by the dogs).


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## Ed (May 9, 2010)

Hannes_F @ Sun May 09 said:


> Final cut to delivery one week? I wonder why you let them do this to you.



This makes me feel better :D Knowing it is indeed a crazy deadline.


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## Hannes_F (May 9, 2010)

All the power to you, brother! :D 8)


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## midphase (May 9, 2010)

I usually take one week at the end of my usual 6-8 weeks to do the final outputs. 

I usually pre-mix as I work, so that the final outputs are only stemming out for the most past...however small changes do happen from time to time.

Usually I can output one Reel each day of that final week, on the average each reel has about 8-10 cues...Logic's offline bounce helps a lot.


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## Ed (May 12, 2010)

Dom @ Wed May 12 said:


> Once I did all of this within 10 days, but I don't think I could do it in a week!



Ok I think I have confused people... the music was already mostly done all I had to do was couple of additional scenes, fit the old versions to the new cut and mix and stem. That took ages probably due to Gigastudio having to be able to bounce in real time and the Gigapulse "death scream" I get a lot. I didnt have to write and record all the music in a week! I guess this means I am very slow


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## Ashermusic (May 12, 2010)

midphase @ Sun May 09 said:


> I usually take one week at the end of my usual 6-8 weeks to do the final outputs.
> 
> I usually pre-mix as I work, so that the final outputs are only stemming out for the most past...however small changes do happen from time to time.
> 
> Usually I can output one Reel each day of that final week, on the average each reel has about 8-10 cues...Logic's offline bounce helps a lot.



+1.


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## JohnG (May 12, 2010)

that is totally crazy. Even with helpers, three weeks is considered very short for an hour's worth of "real" music. If it's pads and piano, that's one thing, but even for that, a week? Insane.


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## Dom (May 12, 2010)

Ed @ Wed May 12 said:


> I didnt have to write and record all the music in a week! I guess this means I am very slow


I am sure you're not slow, but now I understand. Still, I find one week between locked cut and dub a bit rude, but it seems to happen quite often. 

One thing I learnt that when dealing with one of these productions that keep changing the cut it's best work to one version from a certain point onwards. I mix to that version and then do edits to the mixed music 2track/surround/stems. This is easier, especially if you have other people involved (copying/recording etc). I am sort of used to this anyway, as I often have to do different versions for different territories.

It's not ideal musically, but will save you many hours/days in readjusting multitrack Logic/ProTools sessions. This saved time may better be utilised by you writing another good tune.


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## midphase (May 12, 2010)

"I am sure you're not slow, but now I understand. Still, I find one week between locked cut and dub a bit rude, but it seems to happen quite often. "


Well....usually the people who really need time after the edit is locked are the sound guys. I don't know any sound company who will turn around in 1 week after picture lock.

On the current film that I'm wrapping up right now at this moment, the director had originally asked me to complete and deliver the score at the end of April. When I inquired as to when the dubbing session would take place, he told me at the end of May. He apparently wasn't aware that the music delivery didn't need to happen until the dubbing session was scheduled. I was able to buy myself another three weeks of time to do additional tweaks and such.

The point is that sometime the people who set up deadlines, do so arbitrarily and in many cases a deadline can be extended without the project incurring any additional delay.


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## Dom (May 13, 2010)

midphase @ Wed May 12 said:


> I don't know any sound company who will turn around in 1 week after picture lock.



Interesting. If you mean one week from lock (the last changes to picture cut - but if there had been a cut to work to beforehand) to dub, I could list many sound post houses in London.


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## midphase (May 13, 2010)

Ok, let me also add that I don't know many sound post houses who are willing to work on an unlocked picture cut since re-conforming from rough cut to rough cut adds more time to the process and makes package deals less appealing.

Sure, they'll do some prep work on rough cuts, but realistically speaking, foley and ADR really depend on what takes are being used in the film, sometimes a rough cut will have different takes from a locked cut.

Of course, there are some people who will turn around on ridiculous deadlines and do a shitty job...but that's not what I'm talking about.


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## gsilbers (May 13, 2010)

so no one here does this the "remote control" style of having a slaved pro tools to record stems?
very pricey i know.. but worth it? 


btw kays, as i told u, i work in a post house and sometimes there are picture edits on the last minute... and i do mean last minute.. so last minute we have to insert the fixes on the master tapes (and their sub masters 10+tapes) hours before the production company has to send it (we actually send it) to fox neo (or other satellite broadcasters) for transmission... talk about stress >8o 
and worst if they are reality shows :x 
all it takes is for one network head to say "can we change (whatever stupid thing to see if this show will get any better, when in reality the show just sucks from the getgo) " here.


but for movies we do get rough cuts, we conform, and edits after the lock version but not as stressful. sometime we even edit the music the composer sent :shock: 
yes, at the re rec stage music fallls 3rd place


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## midphase (May 13, 2010)

I've been contemplating about doing the stems in one pass to a separate machine.

There are some issues that I haven't quite figured out yet, perhaps someone can chime in. Most importantly as they relate to the Reverb bus and how that gets printed to the second computer so that each stem has its own reverb.

Even simpler, as has been mentioned before, is to get an assistant to handle the outputs of the stems!


Regarding the locked post sound thing, all of the post sound houses that I've ever worked with (on films, not television which I know works totally differently) generally don't get started until the film is locked. Sure, there are always exceptions, and sometimes clients are willing to throw money at the problem for a quick turnaround....but on all the films I've ever worked on, this has never happened. Usually a 3-4 week sound post schedule after picture lock has been my experience (on films).


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## gsilbers (May 13, 2010)

3
or 4 weeks sounds about right. Always depends on the behind the scenes, if producers and directors get I to fights etc. We worked on skorpion king 2 and get pic change after lok. Then on the day of mixing there where like 20+ people in the stage, then we knew why... To many cooks in that kitchen 
and klaus badelt was the composer and he was not happy at all with pic changes, lo g hours and low pay (dunno amount). 


As for a separate computer , I've seen some guys have a reverb on the aux the stems came Into, or an extra aux for a perticular stem and both routed to the same track. 
Which the downside would be that wverytime u work u need that extra computer on to monitor w effects.


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