#VST 6DB PER OCTAVE FILTER MOVIE#
#VST 6DB PER OCTAVE FILTER PRO#

And to get the cleanest sound, we put the highest slope. So, what do we do? We insert a low pass filter. Again, we don’t want the higher frequencies from lets say an explosion or a stereo perc loop that has good bass to go into the LFE channel. Now, because there is no print master, we want to keep the LFE channel that we record to be clean and have only the low frequency. We all saw the pain Quentin Tarantino had to go through for Hateful 8). (It was for print and honestly the print format is no longer very prominent. Now, in today’s mixes, it is very rare to print master, as before since all formats are digital and there is no encode-decode process.

#VST 6DB PER OCTAVE FILTER PRO#

We have a send to the LFE in Pro Tools and if it’s a kick or a bass track or anything that needs that extra oomph, we increase that send. The mistake I was doing and we sometimes still do was this. The truth, when it hit me, was simple yet profound. This led to me thinking about what the role of phase was. In the earlier note, you would have seen how inverting the phase in the LFE channel made it work. The learning was about filters and the mystery behind it. That came from another very good friend and live sound engineer, Niranjan.

(Though this will induce a 2 frame delay with regards to video due to the encode-decode process on the dolby DMU, this can be offset on the video track in Pro Tools.)īut what took me a few more years was to understand the explanation behind it. Always listen with the encode option on the Dolby Unit while mixing.The Mastering Process has a low pass filter on the LFE.Here, was when I learnt 2 of the most important lessons that changed my mix and my approach to it. But, then, as an idea, we inverted the phase on the LFE channel and then mastered. Sure enough, it sounded low in bass, but was exactly the way the 5.1 mastered version played. Now, Bharat asked me to invert the phase in the LFE channel in my mix and listen. Finally after a few minutes, we played the mastered portion and it lacked bass. I was an assistant to a good mix engineer who gave me the freedom to take responsibility of the mixes I did. I played that back and as I was expecting, the lows were back in form. After a moment of contemplating, which was about a second long, sure enough, we load up the session and check. Needless to say, he was sensible and said it didn’t sound like my other mixes and assumed I tried a different route. They don’t bullshit, and they can be straight as a needle. Now, this is what’s good about having friends who are also consultants. I turned to my friend and Dolby consultant Bharat and asked him if he felt the song lacked any bass. (I had been working very long and I was an associate mix engineer then). For a while I thought it was my ears that were tricking me because of ear fatigue. Suddenly I felt that the low ends of the song didn’t sound right.

#VST 6DB PER OCTAVE FILTER MOVIE#

The Difference and realization came one day as I was listening to a song in a movie I mixed while the Dolby Consultant was mastering it. The reason I say this is because even today, I see many beginners and engineers doing the same mistakes I used to make and not notice it.

Well, for a long time, I assumed that anything like the Kick or Bass would have to go that channel because, isn’t that the one for low frequencies? This was where my understanding of the way cinema sounds was limited, and as I learnt more, I felt it should be shared. My Initial days of mixing started with the concept that LFE was meant to have anything with Lows in it. But before that, let me give you a brief history of how I used to use it. This time, I wanted to write about understanding the LFE(Low Frequency Effects) and challenges I faced with the LFE channel in my initial days of mix and continued for some time until I figured out the reason.

Vst 6db per octave filter