Film scores, trailers, and music for picture

Character of the mix

Music for film, series, and video games is mixed to coexist with dialogue and effects. It is often delivered as separate stems (strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, synths, choir, FX) to the re-recording mixer, who combines them with dialogue and sound. The mix must be dynamic, clear in the midrange without covering the spoken voice, and flexible. Trailer music (epic, hybrid orchestral) is instead dense and loud, similar to a commercial track. The soundtrack album is a separate master, more dynamic than pop genres.

Typical balance

EQ

• Space for dialogue: keep the 1–4 kHz zone more restrained in passages under speech; the final mixer can lower the music, but music that is less dense in this zone is easier to work with.
• Strings: HP 30–40 Hz on the basses, 60–80 Hz on the violins; cut 200–400 Hz if the tutti is muddy; presence 2–4 kHz on the high strings, in moderation.
• Brass: body 200–500 Hz, control harshness at 2–4 kHz in fortissimos.
• Epic percussion: sub 40–60 Hz (taiko, sub boom), impact 100–200 Hz, attack 2–5 kHz.

Dynamics

• Wide dynamics: the music follows the scene, from pianissimo to fortissimo.
• Light group compression for stability; hand riding rather than compressors.
• Trailers: heavy compression and limiting, clipper on the percussion.

Space and stereo image

• Sampled or hall-recorded orchestras: a common reverb (hall 2–3.5 s) to place the sections in the same space, with different sends for depth (woodwinds and brass further back, strings in front).
• Classical orchestral positions: first violins on the left, second violins on the left or right, violas center-right, cellos and basses on the right; brass center-right, horns center-left; percussion at the back.
• For cinema: also deliver in 5.1 or 7.1 (or Atmos), with multichannel reverbs and LFE only for impacts.

Stems and delivery

• Stems of the same length, exported with their own reverbs (or with separate reverbs), aligned to timecode.
• Levels: the sum of the stems must reconstruct the mix.
• Loudness: for the music of a TV program the reference is the channel's standard (EBU R128 −23 LUFS, ATSC −24 LKFS) over the whole program with dialogue; the music alone has no fixed target.

Reference loudness

Reference tracks

Hans Zimmer “Time” (Inception), Ludwig Göransson “Can You Hear the Music” (Oppenheimer), John Williams “Duel of the Fates”, Hildur Guðnadóttir “Bathroom Dance” (Joker), Two Steps from Hell “Heart of Courage” (trailer).

Common mistakes

• A mix full at 1–4 kHz under the dialogue.
• Heavy limiting on stems meant for the re-recording mixer.
• Different reverbs for each orchestral library: sections in incoherent spaces.
• Sub booms and percussion with stereo lows.