Remixing for 5.1 Issue 11
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Remixing for 5.1 DTS guru and 5.1 old hand, Rory Kaplan, imparts some salient surround sound production and engineering technique tips to Richard Buskin. ory Kaplan’s initial experiences in the music were on the sides and at the back. We did that without the business came as a keyboard player, program- benefit of video footage, but when you locked it to picture mer, songwriter and engineer. He toured with it somehow made sense. It was really phenomenal. luminaries such as Chick Corea, Herbie RB: Since then, guys like Al Schmitt, Ed Cherney, Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Christopher Cross David Tickle, Chuck Ainley, Rob Jacobs and George Rand Michael Jackson, and played in the studio for Yes, Massenburg have done DTS 5.1 remixes of recordings Joe Cocker and Belinda Carlisle. by Bonnie Raitt, Sting, Roy Orbison, Steely Dan, Olivia After producing an album for Edgar Winter, Kaplan was Newton-John, Don Henley, The Mavericks, among introduced to DTS by Winter’s A&R man and learned many, many others. As more and more projects are that the company intended to make its entry into the mixed you must be learning more and more about the consumer market for multichannel music in order to capabilities of the format? "pioneer and spearhead where quad hadn’t been able to RK: Sure. I’ve worked on about 80 of these projects now, go because of the medium delivery". Indeed, by the time and you really pick up on the details of how to use Kaplan joined DTS in 1996, the relatively small setup had reverbs correctly, what delays to use and what new already enjoyed considerable success on the cinematic equipment is supporting this format. George Massenburg side courtesy of Jurassic Park and several other motion was waiting for the proper ‘verbs to come out before he pictures, but it would be largely thanks to Kaplan’s own would try it, and I know that Lexicon and TC Electronic record industry contacts that DTS would be able to have both released some great machines for working in diversify, commencing with Elliot Scheiner’s multichannel this format [the 960L and System 6000 respectively – see remix of The Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over album. AudioTechnology Issue 10 for more], where the reverbs Richard Buskin: Tell us a little about that seminal are coherent, time-aligned and not out of phase with remix for The Eagles. each channel – in other words, they address all of the Rory Kaplan: That was a real success story because it headaches we had to go through in the beginning. went from a DTS CD – which did very well and gained us So, right now I’m getting excited watching all of these a lot of publicity – to being released as a laser disc which engineers discover this new format, because it’s like a generated even more sales, and then to DVD. In just a whole new canvas for them to paint on. It’s a chance for little over a year that thing has sold more than 400,000 them to revisit music in a format which they would have units, and it’s wholly a DTS recording. Hell Freezes Over liked to have heard it in from the beginning, and they’re comprised recordings from their reunion tour, and Elliot’s producing some stunning results. perspective on the remix was that he wanted the RB: What ground work needs to be done in terms of audience to almost be in the orchestra pit, with The preparation for a multichannel remix? Eagles playing in front while the additional musicians RK: Quite a few things. One is figuring out what studio 40 you’re going to work in, and that often relates to the tapes the sub-woofer crossing over at 85Hz or 100Hz, then you’ve got to work with. You see, if you’re dealing with a there are other guys who are using KRK Exposé 8s, while project that’s 15, 20 years or older, the condition of the Al Schmitt is using his Master Lab Tannoys. So, what I’ve tapes is a big issue. These are your master multitracks found is that the speakers that these engineers are accus- and you don’t want to lose anything, so you have to take tomed to using in stereo suit them best in 5.1 with a the utmost precautions. For example we sent the decent subwoofer. That’s really the trick – I still think analogue tapes of Don Henley’s End Of The Innocence there’s no substitute for nearfield monitoring in this album to Capitol Recording Studios in Hollywood where format. You can’t use the big soffited speakers. If you Remixing they were transferred to a Sony 3348, which means that want to occasionally switch over to them to get a bigger the label now has a backup. feel, that’s one thing, but to me there’s a real danger in Once the tapes have been secured in good condition trying to mix everything on big speakers. You lose much you then have to make sure that the room you’ve chosen of the perception of depth. is set up for 5.1. If it’s not, you have to make sure that you RB: Is it best to have a preconceived idea of sound have enough busses, enough automation faders, and placement and sound field, or does experimentation whatever encode/decode box they want to use, to yield the best results? monitor 5.1. After that, it comes down to what medium RK: The straightest answer to that is: every song dictates for 5.1 you store it on – originally it was generally 20-bit DA88 what’s going to happen. Like when I listened to Sheryl DTRS tape, whereas during the past two and a half years Crow’s album [The Globe Sessions], at the beginning of the everything with DTS has been done in 24-bit [although song Something More Than Nothing there are these great Tascams DTRS recorders now support 24-bit – CH]. The ambient tracks going on, then a little drum rhythm size of the project will dictate how many tracks you need, comes in, the piano trickles in a bit and her voice is but it’s good to have at least a 48-input board, because really light. Well, in my head I can hear all of the you’re going to want effects returns and extra faders to ambient stuff floating around the back sidefields in the do some of the surround panning if your board is not mix. With most of these songs I can hear where they’d designed for surround mixing. Increasingly, there are lots go in a surround mix. of smaller studios popping up that advertise for surround Another good example is The Police’s Greatest Hits work, but you’ve got to make sure they have the right album remix. That proved to be difficult because some of outboard gear and are prep’d correctly. the tracks from the early days were really sparse – you RB: How do engineers generally arrive at their choice know, six channels of drums, bass, guitar and vocal – it of a monitoring system and configuration? What are wasn’t a complicated production. The engineer, David the common mistakes and misconceptions? Tickle, did a great job figuring things out. He had to figure RK: Well, it’s really interesting. For example, Don Smith out how to take the voices and delays and reverbs and engineers for Tom Petty and The Rolling Stones, and I rhythm guitars, and where to space them so that there went with him and Mike Campbell to do a 5.1 mix of was some ambient cohesion to it. Mike’s own material at Cherokee Studios. They have So, each song dictates what you do, but the flipside is these larger midfield-style monitors – not soffited, main you still want to maintain the integrity of the intention of monitors but free-standing Klipsch floor speakers – while the song. You don’t want to take some artistic stance and the room is quite narrow, and I couldn’t tell what the heck say, "Oh, it’ll be hip to have her vocal come out of the was going on in there. I encoded the mix, we played it rear-left speaker, detached from everything else," – unless back elsewhere, and the level was down on one side and it’s intentionally theatrical like a Pink Floyd project. a number of things were wrong. The encoding was an RB: We were talking before about how there’s no preset input/throughput process and we hadn’t level-changed formula, because every record has different require- anything, so for Mike that room clearly ments. However, what considerations represented a false perception in must be made in the multichannel terms of what the speakers were com- remixing of an established and municating. From there they went to much-loved ‘classic’ album? another room in North Hollywood RK: Well, for example, Steely Dan’s which had nearfield monitors and all Gaucho album is accepted as one of of a sudden it made sense to him. the classic CDs, and so when we went So, every engineer has his own par- to remix it we had to bear in mind that ticular monitor preference. For the original board it was mixed on was instance, I’ve noticed that the Genelec a Neve 8078. We therefore remixed it 1031s or 1032s are beautiful-sounding on an 8078 at Donald Fagen’s studio speakers for playback, yet when [River Sound, in New York], and people mix on them the results can Donald and Walter [Becker] were in sound so ‘glorified’ that they miss the room, making the calls with Elliot.