Randall Smith, senior mixer and lead remastering engineer (left), and Allan Falk, co-founder of Post Haste Sound
Post Haste Sound (L.A.)—a five-studio complex focusing on audio remastering and restoration for surround projects—created the 7.1 Blu-Ray edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show being released by Fox this month.
Senior mixer and lead remastering engineer Randall Smith worked on the project in Stage 1, a dual D-Command room running Pro Tools 7.3 and outfitted with JBL three-way theatrical speakers.
“This is a unique title,” Smith says. “It’s not something we get all the time, but the original 2-inch, 24-track recording of the music was available. We transferred everything at 24-bit/96k, and did whatever restoration we needed—mostly using Sonic Solutions plug-ins for Pro Tools and iZotope Spectral Repair—and matched levels to the original 5.1 [released 10 years ago]. Then we could play with the placement a lot more. We didn’t fully break out all the songs, but did on eight of the numbers because moving you into a big surround field like that allows better placement of some of the pieces. I also used the DTS Neural UpMix software to help create both the side surrounds and the rear surrounds. It doesn’t replace the job of an editor, but it helps make the audio tracks nice and big, which is what we were going for.
“Among the biggest songs that people will notice are ‘Time Warp,’ ‘Bless My Soul’ and ‘Science Fiction Double Feature,’” Smith continues. “When this movie was originally done in mono and then again in 5.1, it was very front-heavy. We were able to spread a lot of that really great instrumentation out, making it more enveloping.”
Post Haste, which was founded in 2003, also recently completed surround remastering of CSI Season 1 and restoration of rare Bing Crosby radio broadcasts for the CD So Rare: Treasures From the Crosby Archive.
