Do your alternate mixes match the original mix?

[angopop]

I’m going back to some songs and creating alternate mixes with no lead instrument, just rhythm sections, etc….

I’m wondering whether it is better to create these versions as close to possible so that someone could edit between them cleanly… or to adjust the mix enough so that it sounds really good, but would not necessarily cut well with the original?

Or… have both versions?

What do you guys do? What do the clients want? Thoughts…?

[Michael Nickolas]

Probably as close to possible to edit between cleanly. Recently, a library even asked me to leave any blank space up front that may have resulted from creating an alternate.

[Advice]

I find this varies from library to library so you have to as them. Unfortunately, the terms “alt mix” and “stem” get interchanged and used incorrectly by lots of people including libraries as well.

In theory, an alt mix is a track that is stand-alone, to be marketed as an entity to itself, not a part to be re-mixed with other partials. But a stem is part of a track intended to allow the editor to do a new mix from some or all the stems.

Most of the reality TV cue libraries I work with want alt mixes as stand alone. No blank spaces up front, a proper ring out, mixed to sound good alone, etc. There is no concern about all the alt mixes lining up to be mixed together. However, some libraries really want them more as “stems”, allowing editors to make new mixes. **Usually**, that only happens with high end placements such as feature films but there are exceptions.

The bottom line is ask the library for their specific requirements. The only standard is there is no standard. 😉

HTH 😀

[Author]

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