A separate stereo mix file for syncing?

[jimmycat]

For short films, I always record on poly wav with mixL & mixR on track 1&2 and iso on the rest of tracks. With a clear sound report and clear track naming, usually it's sufficient for the editor/DIT or whoever is in charge of syncing to sync. 

 

However, I've been requested by a specific post house and some freelancers coming from it to offer separate files with only two mix tracks in them. At the first time, I politely asked the syncing guy for the reason, and she got back with a baffling and cold answer: for them, syncing means to sync for mix files only, not the files for all tracks, which didn’t explain too much. Although from my view, she could’ve easily removed or hid the iso tracks after syncing and besides, it could’ve been beneficial for the editor to reach any hidden iso tracks when they needed to, I was worried to get in the way too much of their workflow so I just kept my mouth shut and made the mix files they wanted for them via Waveagent every time I know they’re doing the syncing.

 

All the projects I deal with them are short films rather than fast-turnaround shows and they don’t need to do dailies for short films. On top of that, I always send a mono mix to camera hops. So I am sincerely curious if there’s any practical reasons for requesting those separate mix files except for saving a bit of time on the post end .

 

Thanks.

 

 

[PMC]

I probably don't have as much experience as you, Jimmycat, but for this very reason I usually record poly to one card slot and mono to the second card slot on my Sound Devices Mixer/Recorder. 

 

Some post houses want all the tracks encapsulated (poly). Others don't want to clutter their timeline with every track (mono) while they are rough cutting. Maybe they just want you to do the work for their entry level assistant editor. 

 

I used to prefer the mono card as I posted for clients but have switched to the poly file once I moved from Sound Forge to Audition. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I generally defer to whatever post asks for, but they are asking you to post-process files for no reason.  If it was just a mono mix I'd have no problem with it, but most recorders won't do stereo + isos (Zoom is the exception that I'm aware of)

 

I make a stereo backup of my mix on a separate recorder for this reason.  Something you could consider next time.

[Bouke]

Just for fun, how are they syncing?

What software? 

And are they creating the sync files as new renders, adding stuff like LUTS, or is the link just in metadata (new sync clips in bins pointing to video / audio)

What I find puzzling, if they sync, they probably omit the cam sound. (Very little cams shoot MOS afaik), so how hard can it be to omit the unwanted channels?

 

 

[claus]

perhaps they already established the new  "sounddevices - 24bit mix & 32bit ISO file - workflow" and audio-post does the reconform.

[jimmycat]

@claus  Could be. I didn’t think of that. Thanks !

@Bouke I have no idea of their workflow. Like I said, I tried to ask them once but got a pretty lukewarm response.
And yeah, I’m as puzzled as you are.

@The Documentary Sound Guy By stereo, they just want the MixL(boom mics mix) & MixR(lav mix), which my recorder/mixer can do. It doesn’t take much effort for me to make mix-only files. I was just wondering the benefits of sync the mix-only files.

Do you always offer the post the mix-only files along with the all-included poly? 

@PMC I’m way less experienced than so many sound vets here. Still learning every day. Thanks for the idea. Poly on one card, monos on the other is an all-around setup. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

4 hours ago, jimmycat said:

 By stereo, they just want the MixL(boom mics mix) & MixR(lav mix), which my recorder/mixer can do. It doesn’t take much effort for me to make mix-only files. I was just wondering the benefits of sync the mix-only files.

It's not so much an issue of being able to create the mix (I would expect pretty much all mixers can create boom-L lavs-R).  It's the ability to record a 2ch (polywave) mix track in addition to mono isos that would be unusual (though PMC's suggestion of poly on one card and mono on the other is a good workaround).  Most recorders (that I'm aware of) can either output one polywave, or a mono file for each track, but not a combination of the two.  You mentioned you were using WaveAgent to process the files after the fact, which made me think your recorder can't output the exact combination that post asked for.

I know it's not a *lot* of effort to post-process files, but it's still 10-20 minutes at the end of a long day to transfer, process, and re-export files from WaveAgent.  And it's effort that isn't strictly part of your job description as a production sound mixer.  That kind of processing is post's job.

I won't say that I don't sometimes do the same on occasion, but in general, it's not good practice to be providing that additional service without charging for it.  Usually, that means production will prefer to shift that charge to post (where there should already be a workflow established to handle it).

I think for a short film, I'd have done the same thing as you ... fix the files and give them what they want.  My attitude would be very different on a show call that runs 14 hour days and forced calls.  That 15 minutes at the end of the day is 15 minutes out of my turnaround, and conserving that energy matters.

[Wandering Ear]

Did they specify boom on left and lavs on right?  If so maybe they are used to the old broadcast workflows and are planning on using those tracks and not using your  at all?. 
If not I would give them a mono (or dual mono) mix as you think sounds best for the scene and let them use that for the edit.  That will be a closer representation of the scene for reference.  Hopefully they have a good conform workflow setup, or their post sound team will waste a lot of time. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

1 hour ago, Wandering Ear said:

Did they specify boom on left and lavs on right?  If so maybe they are used to the old broadcast workflows and are planning on using those tracks and not using your  at all?. 

That's a very good point.