One Project, Many Cities: How we make Mixing, ADR, and Sound feel like it's all in the same room

There’s a moment everyone here loves. At the start of the day, clients are seated (some with pastries in hand), our sound team’s all settled in, talkbacks are ready, and the mixer hits "*play"* – and everyone, whether they’re on our Santa Monica stages, at a Burbank stage, at Smart Post Atlanta, or monitoring from Vancouver, reacts all at the same time. That’s when the technology disappears and we remember why we do what we do: to make and tell stories with sound

The Heart of Smart Post Sound

We’ve built Smart Post Sound to behave like one facility with multiple doors. Santa Monica (Smart Post West) might carry you through your pre-dubs. Burbank/Los Angeles handles the client-heavy mix days. Smart Post Atlanta might tackle a same-day ADR pickup. Meanwhile, Vancouver patches in a director still on set. The creative judgment stays the same. The accents in the rooms might change, but the calendar stops being the enemy.

What “the same room” means to us

Shared taste, shared workflows. Our Dialogue, FX, and Music layouts aren’t reinvented project to project. Recorder routings stay put. Object beds, stems, and printmasters are standardized so the mix can travel between any stage. Leave a notes day in Santa Monica, open up the stems in Atlanta, and everything feels familiar.

ADR that assumes someone is remote. Nearly every ADR session now has a remote element to it. A supervisor down the street, a director on a different coast, talent with us (and sometimes even recorded remotely). That’s the starting point, not the exception. Clean, natural-sounding dialogue; predictable cueing and wipes; takes recorded locally and sometimes even mirrored when we need them. No one should feel like they’re “calling in” to their own show.

Picture-accurate reviews without the nonsense. When we stream a mix or record ADR, it’s a custom path built for audio and picture performance and for the user's experience. This is not a last-minute screen share. Latency is constantly tested and actively managed. Various software(s) are selected at times, and we make it as predictable as we can. Notes should focus on the performance, not the technology driving it.

A Day That Actually Happens (...and Often)

8:30 a.m. — Santa Monica (Smart Post West), Predubs. A dialogue pass usually happens first. We clean the noise and shape the tracks while thinking ahead. Uh-oh! One of the lead character's lines just can't be cleaned up. Thankfully, Atlanta has an ADR window open this afternoon. The actor is in town shooting a movie. What timing! Memory locations, markers, and ADR cues aren’t “somewhere in the regions bin” for us. They’re exactly where Atlanta expects them when they need to record.

10:15 a.m. — Burbank/LA (Smart Post Sound), Client Review. Editorial drops in a new VFX shot. The shot shifts material eight frames. We conform, update automation and streamers, and flag those changes to Vancouver. The director will be listening to the final mix right after coming off set.

1:00 p.m. — Smart Post Atlanta, ADR Recording. Talent in the booth; showrunner monitoring from home; director on a laptop in a production van. Talkback is conversational, not walkie-talkie and choppy. We cue what the ADR supervisor requested. The showrunner wants another alt with more breath and “life” to it. "Let's grab it!" We record the alt and selects on both sides. This way, editorial has options if the network drops out.

4:30 p.m. — Back to the Mix, Same Show. The new line drops into the mix like it always belonged there. No one spends an hour EQ'ing noises out or dealing with sync drifts. We print the updated stems, confirm with everyone in the room and anyone remotely connected, and move on.

ONE day, FOUR doors, ONE SHOW.

The Glue That Makes This Possible

1) Session Workflows That Travel

• Dialogue/FX/Music sessions and routings named the same across rooms.

• Atmos object beds built to a house plan.

• Printmasters and folddowns that won’t surprise broadcast or streaming QC. We QC that in-house before we deliver.

  
  

2) ADR That Feels Like a Conversation

• Streamers and beeps where needed. Never as an "Oh, you needed those..?" afterthought.

• ADR sync editorial “on-the-fly" because fast ADR with slow editorial is still slow.

• Local and far-end safety takes when the stakes are high (alts, selects, tight sync locks).

• A no-surprises checklist: cues confirmed, rehearsals captured, any wild series takes recorded while the voice is still living in the moment.

  
  

3) Review Chains That Respect Audio First

• Frame-accurate picture sync; clear talkbacks – always.

• Proper stream gain-staging and volume controls so dynamics aren’t flattened before a note is even given.

• Separate audio paths for “discussions” vs. “performances” so directors, showrunners, and post supervisors each hear what they need to.

  
  

4) Deliverables That Pass the First Time

• Spec-checked stems and masters (naming, duration, true-peak, loudness, LKFS) by our own internal QC and mastering departments.

• Consistent alignment and room translation so stage-to-stage changes don’t become “why does it sound different here vs. here?”

  
  

Why the Scale Works Without Getting Impersonal

We’re big enough to cover overlapping calendars and late-breaking changes. Yet, we are close enough that you can text the person supervising or mixing your show directly. You don’t get a mysterious “operations” email. You get the mixer, ADR supervisor, or FX editor who already knows how your show should sound.

You feel it in the little moments:

• The way we treat that onset lav so it folds in with the boom without pulling you out of the scene.

• Backgrounds that sound like actual places, not just loops. Transitions carry the eye, not just the ear.

• Impacts that maintain their weight and bring emotions to life.

  
  

Three Real-World Patterns We’ve Planned For

Cross-location ADR with time-zone juggling. Talent in Vancouver, showrunner in Los Angeles, director traveling. We schedule sessions around the world with affiliated (and vetted) studios. We record only what's needed, match it during playbacks, and leave editorial with clean takes. Approvals happen in-session, not tomorrow.

Split-city mix days. Predubs in Burbank, producer notes from New York, final fixes in Atlanta. That’s where we had a room where the director needed to be that day. Thanks to stage parity and standardization, the mix never “jumps rooms.”

Editorial conform + same-day delivery. New picture turns over at lunch. Three new lines flagged. We loop them with everyone monitoring remotely. Tracks are back in time for the final mix pass. No overtime just to transfer and wrangle it all.

What You Can Count On – Wherever You're At

• Consistency. Same decisions, same philosophy, same integrity – city to city.

• Clarity. If you’re monitoring remotely, you’re not guessing what the room sounds like. We standardize our rooms to current Dolby standards.

• Speed Without Panic. We're set so that last-minute "thing" doesn’t become a last-minute fire drill for anyone.

• People. Direct, accountable, reachable. You know who’s on your show, and they know you.

  
  

If that’s what you need on your next project, we’re here for you.