ABSTRACT
The concept of the Four Sound Areas is the culmination of around 20 years’ worth of the author's thinking about the perceived meaning of ‘sounds’ when listening to the component parts of a full soundtrack, that is, the individual mix stems; a thought process that originated from hearing the isolated parts of a full mix as they were being delivered for syndication purposes: a case of watching the same, familiar pictures of a particular project, accompanied only by the sub-mix stems required by that project’s ‘Deliverables’ document. To use an architectural analogy, it is as if the Sound Designer is given permission to choose all of the materials that a house will be built from and then they provide the plan for the shape and style of the house to the Re-recording Mixer. The Abstract sound area is concerned with sounds that are less codified in their meaning.
