I've had a hellacious evening. Not bad, just intense. I heard the first ten tracks of the master and wasn't so happy with it. When they do these three-track mixdowns they put SECTIONS of the band on the three channels - this they do so the film mixers have some control on the mixing stage, but Carrie was a mono film so we can't get what you'd call a true stereo mix from these three tracks - we've done it many times before, however, and we've always created a pleasing sound because the instruments are where they are and don't change.
But in Carrie, the instruments occasionally do change what track they're on and when you're editing cues together it becomes, while not terrible, a little distracting. Most people would neither notice or care, but unfortunately I do and I do. So, I think I'm probably going to do what I did not want to do - go from the sixteen-track session tapes and remix it all - but I don't know a) how possible it is, and b) if we've got everything on the ten reels of two-inch tape I have that's on the thirteen reels of half-inch tape that we used. If we do, and if it seems like it's not going to be horrendously hard, and if my engineer is available to do it in the next three days, then I'll pop for the dough and do it. I'll know the entire story tomorrow. Luckily, when I set my shipping dates it's always five to six weeks down the line, just for situations like this. So, even if the master doesn't get to the plant for another two weeks, we'll still have discs a week or two ahead of the official ship date, so that's no problem.
