When Is It Too Much?

When Is It Too Much?

Working With Alternate Mix-Outs

We’ve talked before about cutting between a track’s full mix and alternate mix. Quite frequently, the alternate mix will sit much better under dialog since there’s less instrumentation fighting the dialog. At CSS Music we started delivering these alternate mixes as far back as 1988 with our PowerTrax® library and now we offer these mixes with our latest Project Platinum® updates.

So, have you tried underscoring an entire scene with one of these stripped down mixes? If you have an extended emotional scene where you really don’t want the music to develop, something like the acoustic guitars only mix from “A Road Trip Quietly,” (PowerTrax volume 33) could provide the ideal feel for the scene. There are also the full mix and mix sans drums of this track if you decide later to provide more momentum.

Even going back to earlier PowerTrax® like volume 20…a rhythm mix from a track like “Concrete Rider” will give you an upbeat hip-hop groove that could work under a number of adrenaline fueled scenes where there’s a lot of dialog. Or if you need more emotion: “I Wanted More” (PowerTrax® volume 25) has an excellent rhythm mix that will work great with dialog.

While we’re extremely proud of what our composers bring to the CSS Music library, we know you guys need mixes that will best support your shows—it’s just the “reality” of television production today. And if you find a particular style of music where you’d like more, with these alternate mix-outs, let us know! We will endeavor to add them to future updates in the next few months.