7 min read
The audio post production pipeline, from card to final mix
Audio post is not one job, it is eight, in a specific order. Doing them out of order is why independent mixes stall.
Independent productions usually treat sound as a single task at the end. Professional pipelines split it into stages, each with its own deliverable, because a decision made at the wrong moment forces everything after it to be redone.
The order that works
- Offload and verify: copy cards twice, checksum, confirm sample rate and timecode.
- Sync and organise: match audio to picture, split poly files into named mono stems.
- Dialogue edit: choose boom or lav per line, clean noise, lay room tone.
- ADR: only for what dialogue editing cannot save.
- Sound design and effects: the world outside the dialogue.
- Foley: feet, cloth and props performed to picture.
- Premix: balance each family separately before touching the master.
- Final mix and deliverables: stems, loudness compliance, exports.
Lock picture before dialogue editing
Every frame the edit moves after sound work begins costs time. Dialogue editing on an unlocked cut is the single most common way independent films burn their sound budget.
Keep one sample rate through the whole chain
48 kHz, 24 bit, from field recorder to final mix. Every conversion is an opportunity for drift, aliasing artefacts or a silent resample by an import dialog nobody read.
Deliverables at the end
Plan for stems: dialogue, music and effects as separate files, plus a stereo mix and a surround mix if required. Distributors ask for them later and rebuilding stems from a flattened mix is not possible.
Our tools cover the mechanical steps: splitting poly WAVs, merging mono stems, mapping channels, converting sample rates and folding a surround mix down to stereo, all in the browser.