Kid Koala

Funny, Melancholy, Metals!

Added 2024-11-25 19:25:36 +0000 UTC

Hey Everyone!

We are in the process of mastering the music cues and some of the sound effects for the Space Cadet animated film. I've been working with Vid Cousins at Monkey Puzzle Sound studio for this part of the mix. We are sending each music cue and song through some mastering equalizers and compressors to add the final sheen and polish to the mix.

The mixing/mastering process is a surprisingly delicate process and often quite surgical. Some of the changes we make are quite microscopic in audio terms sdding a dB here to something more punchy or lowering certain frequencies by a dB to make them smoother. But still, I'm enjoying the process of making those changes in the name of fun and making each scene resonate more! Some of the music cues have dozens of the separate instrument tracks in them and the mastering compressor adds a tiny bit of analog tape-like glue to the mix.

Silly things I've learned:

I'm no metallurgist but sending the audio through the NICKEL transformers on the compressor adds a lovely high end sheen to the track. It's great for sunny and humorous scenes. Sending the audio through the IRON transformers has a more saturated, darker sound that seems to be working well for more poignant, introspective or melancholy scenes. So now, at least in the mastering studio world, nickel = funnier and iron = sadder. LOL

Other silly things I've noticed:

Reverb doesn't help the humorous scenes in this film. It seems the more mono (where the audio is less wide in the stereo field) and drier (less reverb) the sound effects are in the funny scenes makes them funnier! So at least for this film, dry humour requires dry mixes! Who knew??! (* by the way I am not prepared to write a thesis about this... these are just some observations I've made after working through each music cue in the film.)

We are in the last stretch (final 3 weeks) of post production on the film! Here are my mix/mastering notes that I have to complete today. They may read like the most random grocery list of things to do but trust me they'll all make sense when the movie is out!