Multiple GRAMMY Award-, Emmy- and Oscar-winning recording and mixing engineer Chris Fogel, who has worked on the scores and soundtracks of over 200 major motion pictures and television shows that include the Oscar-winning score to Black Panther, the Emmy-winning scores to The Mandalorian and Severance, Oppenheimer and many others, utilizes a stable of plugins from NUGEN Audio in his workflow.
Fogel explains that the plugins make it possible for him to deliver projects in various formats, specifically Halo Upmix for film scores: “Oppenheimer was mixed in 5.0 IMAX, so we didn’t have to worry about going above 5.0 for that, but Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was delivered in 7.1.4, which we had to accommodate to have it sound right. It’s a punchy, loud, percussive-infused score that can’t lose its intensity, which often happens with upmixing — everything gets phasey and you start losing the drive of the sound. I always listen to the original stereo mono sound to make sure it’s still what I want. With NUGEN, I’m in the vicinity of where I need to be to satisfy my delivery requirements.”
He specifically cites the benefits of the Halo Upmix plugin: “It works immediately on activation and does the exact right thing on whatever I need. I have been working on a lot of projects that absolutely must have mono- or stereo-compatibility. The plugin’s ‘Exact’ feature is a massive help for maintaining stereo compatibility for broadcast purposes. I also like that I can tweak the diffusion and make the audio a little more point source or diffused in the rears.”
Halo Downmix is another go-to, especially on albums: “I often have to take all these stems from 5.1 or 7.1.4 back down to stereo in a way that sounds accurate; not phasey or washy. Sometimes the stereo downmix gets washy if the surrounds are too present. With Halo Downmix, I have complete intuitive control.”
Other favored plugins include the brand’s Monofilter, Stereoizer and loudness platforms: “I use Monofilter quite a bit for bass management and Stereoizer for widening—they are tools for dealing with stereo anomalies. Stereoizer is sort of like the Monofilter, but in reverse, and I love that. I can take specific frequencies or ranges and move them, rather than moving the entire signal, and I find that to be super helpful. There are a couple other plug-ins I turn to as well, including VisLM, which is my exclusive loudness meter. It will be critical for a major project I’ve got coming up this year.”
