Richard Addis

Richard Addis

SENIOR OPERATIONS MANAGER, HALO POST

Loudness Toolkit and Halo Upmix’s tight integration into Pro Tools is an asset for dubbing mixer Richard Addis

High-quality work in the shortest amount of time

Working primarily in documentary-style programming, Richard Addis, senior operations manager and dubbing mixer at Halo Post, sees a real mix of content and source material. The biggest challenge in Addis’ world is the need to deliver high-quality work in the shortest amount of time. As a result, Addis continually looks to improve time and workflow efficiencies and knows that finding the right tools makes a huge difference — among these are NUGEN Audio’s Loudness Toolkit (VisLM 2, ISL 2 and LM-Correct 2), and Halo Upmix for 5.1 projects.

Addis and the audio team have been using NUGEN products since the initial launch of the Loudness Toolkit v1. “We chose NUGEN for its reliability, usability, functionality and results,” he says. “A plug-in that sounds amazing, but that crashes every time, has an unnavigable UI and can’t be customized, will end up being sent to the virtual trash bin. NUGEN’s suite of plug-ins delivers on all of these criteria in spades. Its seamless integration into Pro Tools makes for a unified editing and mixing workflow.”

Just get on with mixing

NUGEN’s plug-ins are licenced in all eight of Halo Post’s mixing rooms, and have become integral to the audio team’s day-to-day workflow as the software is present in all of Halo Post’s mix templates across all delivery formats and genres. “ISL 2 is an ever-present safety net on the end of every final mix chain,” adds Addis. “Its transparency and reliability mean that it’s a simple set-and-forget tool, but, despite barely having to be touched, it is worth its weight in gold because QC fails for True Peak violations simply don’t happen.”

"[ISL] is worth its weight in gold."

Additionally, VisLM is used in most all of Addis’ sessions, often with multiple instances. “I’ll usually have one measuring across the VO, one across the dialogue and one across the final mix,” he explains. “This gives me total visibility and control across the anchor elements of the mix. I know that if these are in the right place, I can forget about watching meters and plots, and just get on with mixing.”

"The NUGEN Audio plug-ins not only complement our existing workflows, but the tools just work – and that’s the highest praise you can give."

Belt and braces

Addis also relies on NUGEN’s LM-Correct as the final belt-and-braces check after playout. According to Addis, “Thanks to having used the NUGEN Loudness Toolkit throughout the mix, it’s a rare occurrence that LM-Correct ever tells us that a mix is out of spec. However, if it does, an offline analysis through VisLM will quickly point us to the problem section of the mix so that it can be corrected in-session. Whilst I want the dialogue and VO to be my -23 anchor elements, there are, of course, areas of light and shade to be found in the mix. Using VisLM’s colour coding and custom bands allows me to visually highlight a range +/-, within which to keep these elements.”

"Thanks to having used the NUGEN Loudness Toolkit throughout the mix, it’s a rare occurrence that LM-Correct ever tells us that a mix is out of spec."

Different needs for different projects

For Addis, the needs of each project are always different, and NUGEN’s customizability of the tools makes it simple to alter defaults from job-to-job. One project of recent note where NUGEN was especially useful for Addis, was his work on The Planets, a five-part series for the BBC and Nova.

“Whilst mixing The Planets, the biggest mix challenge was in managing a lot of mid- and low-frequency content across the soundtrack,” says Addis. “Lows can have a seemingly disproportionate impact on the loudness plot, especially at frequencies where they are all but inaudible on your average flat-panel TV’s built-in speakers. Why waste loudness headroom for no real gain? VisLM, in conjunction with FabFilter ProQ3’s spectrum analyser whilst A/Bing between speaker sets, was crucial to identifying and dealing with problem areas. This was especially true of instances in which large amounts of LF power were skewing the average reading upwards with no real perceptible loudness increase, especially during playback on smaller systems.”

Fast, efficient and comprehensive

"The fact that the company has become the de-facto standard in loudness is testament to its desire to build the tools that people want."

In addition to his use of NUGEN products, Addis finds the company’s support extremely helpful. “Issues with NUGEN products have been few and far between. However, on the odd occasion where we’ve needed support, it has been fast, efficient and comprehensive,” he adds. “The NUGEN team is always keen to reach out to the industry at large for feedback on its products, and the fact that the company has become the de-facto standard in loudness is testament to its desire to build the tools that people want.”

Halo Post is considered one of London’s busiest independent post houses with clients ranging from TV dramas, entertainment and documentaries to feature films, commercials and animation producers. Halo is a consistent finalist and the 2019 winner of the U.K.’s Broadcast Award for Best Post Production House.