March 30, 2016

What’s The Alternative


Making Use of Alternative Mix-outs

Whether you’re using a CSS Music track that’s structured like a song or the ever-growing cue music style, having a secondary--or alternative mix--may be just what the doctor ordered for your next show!

We’ll leave the best way to use these sparser mixes up to your own particular workflow preferences. But one method we might suggest is to line both tracks up in your workstation. This allows you to make the music stand out when you have action without dialog and then cross fading to the alternate mix (which might even be just a solo instrument or a drums and bass mix) with clips that have a lot of dialog.

While this is particularly effective when working with a busy music track, it also has its place with cue music tracks. But wait, you say! Aren’t those cue music tracks already composed to work well with dialog?

Absolutely.  But what if your scene has someone whispering? Or there’s a voice off camera that’s low in level? Maybe there’s ambient noise or wind? You can either pot up the voice track OR keep the audio levels consistent and drop the music down using a sparse alternative mix.

Not to say that an alternative mix from a CSS Music track isn’t the perfect first choice for music! Sometimes just a catchy rhythm from one of these mix-outs is all you need to set a scene.

Either way, we want you to know that we’re listening to you and will endeavor to keep evolving the CSS Music library!


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