The Village: Trust No One (Other than The Village) to Mix X-Files Film Soundtrack

West Los Angeles, CA. When superhot soundtrack music composer Mark Snow (X-Files, Millennium, Hart to Hart) and veteran engineer Larold Rebhun needed a room to mix the six track surround music for the much-awaited X-Files film, they chose Studio D at The Village.

Snow, who amasses "Most Performed Music" awards every year from ASCAP for his prolific work on series television, generally composes and mixes at his own home studio where his primary instrument is a Synclavier, but the expanded scope of the X-Files film sound and the addition of an 85-piece orchestra to the score made working at a larger facility a necessity.

Rebhun, Snow's regular engineer whose 28 years of music engineering experience includes projects for Billy and the Beaters, John Cougar Mellencamp and Pee Wee's Playhouse, had previously done several projects at The Village, and realized that the multiroom complex, located in West L.A. and the site of film music mixes for Quest for Camelot, Mulan, Good Will Hunting, Phenomenon, Con Air and Shawshank Redemption, was a logical choice for the project, both because of its convenient location and because of Studio D's Neve VLR-SP console which is fitted with a Neve center section film module.

"We recorded the Synclavier sounds to DA88s at Mark's home studio," explains Rebhun. "Normally, for television, I mix all the synth sounds to a stereo pair of tracks, but because for the film we were mixing for surround I kept everything separate, and instead of using my usual reverbs in the stereo mix I kept things dry. We transferred our original tracks from DA88 to Sony 3348 for the orchestra recording and then stayed on 3348 for mixing.

"Studio D at The Village worked out great for the surround mixes," he continues. "The setup was great and the assistant engineer was fast and very knowledgeable. Dynaudio had lent me a new speaker system to check out, comprised of five of their BM15A's, which are amplified small monitors, along with one of their subwoofers, and at The Village it was an easy interface."

Rebhun made use of Studio D's live chamber to enhance his surround mixes. "One very cool thing about Studio D at The Village", he comments, "is that there is a live chamber behind the drum wall, which really added a nice ambiance. I placed four mics in there, put a 40 MS delay on the rear mics, and used that delayed signal in the rear surround speakers. That natural ambiance worked especially well on the synth material, giving it real, adjustable acoustic room ambiance that blended beautifully with the live orchestra it was a great combination for the surround sound.

"We needed both stereo and surround mixes completed in a very short amount of time," concludes Rebhun. "We had to work fast and we needed a studio that's experienced with the tight schedules and accelerated pace that film and television work requires. The Village, with its expert staff and great equipment, helped us readily accomplish all that we had to do."

Back to Articles