Introduction
In the world of tight-deadline, high-pressure audio post-production, delivering a pristine surround mix is only half the battle. Equally crucial, and often more challenging, is ensuring that the mix you worked so hard on in surround translates flawlessly to stereo and potentially other downmix surround formats.
I think NUGEN Audio is pioneering the creation of plug-ins (see our Loudness Toolkit review, amongst others) that fit the work processes of both high-end post-production studios and independent composers working contracts, by providing, amongst many other things, handy solutions for up-and-downmixing your work quickly and accurately with less technical tweaking.
I am quick to say that I am firmly in the latter camp mentioned, being a composer as part of a duo that creates music for film and television. I have relied heavily and successfully (I think!) on NUGEN’s products for years now. When it comes to working in surround, I have found that the technical know-how needed for successful up-and-down mixes is exponentially greater than for just working in stereo, and I’ve found that NUGEN’s plug-ins cover my knowledge gap extensively while I learn more and more about the subject.
I have used the brand’s Halo Upmix many times to ensure that stereo mixes that I’ve made sweep up to 5.1 with no issues. More recently, I’ve been working directly in surround and downmixing after the fact. NUGEN’s Halo Downmix plug-in has stepped in a few times, offering an extremely useful solution for folding down the mix.
Traditional Downmixing Issues
Traditional downmixing using basic coefficient (algorithmic gain) summing, when I’ve attempted it myself, can lead to very undesirable artifacts: most specifically a washed-out soundstage and phasing issues. I’ve found that Halo Downmix has approached and resolved these issues immediately.
Utility on Steroids
Halo Downmix is a utility plug-in with a lot of control. A lot of the utility is done without you having to lift a finger. This includes solving phase and level issues, but also clarity issues that can arise from re-interpreting the space created in surround mixes with reverbs and other effects.
Upon opening the plug-in, you’re greeted with a fairly busy-looking GUI, mainly covered in graphic representations of the original surround levels and a ‘radar’ graphic window that shows the strength of the signal coming from the different channels in real time.
The preset menu is at the top of the GUI, and I will often start there, going for something that is an exact or near sonic representation of what I’m looking for. I will tweak from there. The second place I’ll go to is the settings, shown with a graphic of a gear cog. This is a vital element of the plug-in ensuring that you get the routing solved before diving in too deeply to the plug-in. Everyone has different systems and layouts, and here is where you send and receive the correct signal — not only from the hardware channels, but also the layout that your DAW auto configures for each channel. This worked like a charm using Logic Pro and UAD hardware, even though they have slightly different default channel configurations.
Beyond the Basics
Once these two elements of the plug-in are sorted, in my mind, the bare utility of the downmixing is accomplished. Watching levels, you could downmix from there and have a technically competent mix. But where Halo Downmix starts to shine is the control beyond that, allowing for aesthetics as well as technical demands to get a stereo mix to the place your ears want it to be, beyond the basics.
The majority of the GUI window is allocated to the surround analysis of the audio. The ‘radar’, that will be familiar to anyone who uses the brand’s Halo Upmix plug-in, shows where the strength of the sound is at any point during playback. There are several parameters you can alter to affect the sound in various channels before the downmix occurs. If there is delay to the rear channels it can be automatically adjusted by algorithm to remove phase issues, or you can choose to alter it manually. There’s a shelf to the rear channels to roll off the highs, and a choice to completely remove or level back the LFE channel if you want to retain some of the sub in the final stereo mix.
On the right-hand side is the downmix level section. Each pair of speakers is represented by a mid/side channel (excepting center and LFE, if you let it through). The preset you started with will have set some start up levels recommended for the aesthetic you want to start with, and you can tweak further from there. You can unlink the mid/side channels for each pair and adjust according to taste. There are further overall EQ and spatial controls, enabling you to choose the frequency at which bass is mono, and balance with a high-pass filter.
The monitor section is also useful for comparing your folded mix to the original surround version. It has several different elements that cater for loads of different scenarios, including mixing down from one surround version to a smaller one and being able to immediately compare the versions with a single button click.
In Practice
In practice, I used Halo Downmix on several projects this year, for downmixing surround mixes to stereo for festival submissions and soundtrack compilations. I’m by no means a technical expert, and I found that using Halo Downmix removed almost all the technical difficulties I may have faced without it. Not only that, it enabled me to shape the surround mix into something that I wanted and enjoyed listening to. Having excellent presets as a starting point was inspiring. To hear the different aesthetic choices that were possible and be able to instantly compare between the surround and the stereo mix was absolutely invaluable. I was using Halo Downmix to convert from 7.1 to stereo, although I think now it can convert down from Atmos, which is truly impressive.
Conclusion
Speaking as a composer who is required more and more often to provide both surround and stereo mixes, this plug-in is a total no-brainer. Highly recommend!
Halo Downmix is available in all major plug-in formats, starting from approx. €254.
- More info: NUGEN Audio Halo Downmix
- Available at Plugin Boutique
