During the final mix of a movie it is, for many reasons, impossible to take care of each single sound effect. Due to other reasons, I have not had the right tools for the mastering of my sound effects until I recently discovered the Flux Solera II.

During the sound editing of the movie about the life of Edith Piaf (La môme/La vie en rose) we had to deal with a boxing sequence (Piaf's lover, was the middle weight boxing champion, Marcel Cerdan). The punch needed to feel strong but still stay clean, flashes needed to be sharp with real deep bass. For this important task the Solera II performed with excellence.

When recently working with an action movie containing gunfights, first I recorded the guns on four mono tracks with a Soundfield microphone

in ambisonic sound format. But still after the recording session I was quite desperate to get some more power to the gun sound. Then I needed to master 5.1 channels and mono tracks as well.

For this kind of job I always use the Solera II, but in this case I needed something really strong and sharp. So for the final effect mastering I went with Alchemist and the Pure Limiter II. With Alchemist I was able to get the deep bass as well as the sharp metal component, and using the Pure Limiter II you can get a really powerful effect still with a total respect of the frequency range.

Finally, it was a big success, especially for the gunfight!

With the multi channels capabilities of the Flux:: plug-ins line, I can master my stereo files as well as my 5.1 ambisonic files and this makes also the difference.

“Great sound, great functions and a really nice looking user interface!"

Gaël Nicolas
sound and effects editor