29 July 2026 | 6 min read
The production sound mixer: the person who decides what post inherits
Everything post can do with the dialogue is decided on set. The production sound mixer is the person making those decisions in real time.
The production sound mixer, sometimes credited as location sound recordist, runs the sound department on set. They choose microphones, set levels, record the takes, name every track, write the sound report and hand a day of material to post.
The decisions that reach post
- Which microphone is on which track, and whether track names were written into the file.
- Gain structure, which sets the noise floor and the headroom the editor inherits.
- Sample rate and bit depth, which the whole pipeline then has to match.
- Whether a mix track was recorded, and whether it is usable or reference only.
- Timecode, jam schedule and how reliably the rushes will auto sync.
Track layout conventions
A typical eight track poly WAV: track 1 boom, tracks 2 to 6 lavs by character, tracks 7 and 8 the mixer's stereo mix. Character names in the track metadata are the difference between an assistant who understands the file and one who auditions every channel.
The sound report
The report lists every file with scene, slate, take, circled takes, track assignments, wild tracks, room tone and notes about problems. It is the map post reads before touching a single file, and it is what turns a folder of WAVs into a day of shooting.
What good handover looks like
Poly WAVs with correct BWF metadata, matching timecode, consistent track names, room tone for each location, wild lines for anything unusable, and a report that matches the files. Anything missing becomes someone else's afternoon.
Post can split those poly WAVs into named mono stems, check metadata and convert rates here in the browser, with nothing uploaded to a server.