---
title: "Audio Post for Episodic & Vertical Series"
description: "Batch audio post for serialised episodes — dialogue, score, sound design, mix, and the M&E stem that decides whether the series can be sold into another language."
canonical_url: "https://elephantaudio.pk/services/vertical-series"
type: "Service"
date_modified: "2026-09-18T19:14:24.707Z"
publisher: "Elephant Audio"
publisher_url: "https://elephantaudio.pk"
typical_timeline: "Turnaround is set against the shoot, and the batch is scheduled as a season rather than episode by episode"
best_for: "Producers and production companies shooting serialised episodic work — vertical drama, web series, or long-form episodic — who need every episode finished, measured, and delivered as a set rather than one at a time."
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  - name: "Pakistan"
    type: "Country"
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      - "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q843"
      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan"
author:
  name: "Abu Bakar Zahid"
  role: "Founder, Managing Director & Music Producer at Elephant Audio"
  url: "https://elephantaudio.pk/founder"
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person: "Abu Bakar Zahid"
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---

# Audio Post for Episodic & Vertical Series

Batch audio post for serialised episodes — dialogue, score, sound design, mix, and the M&E stem that decides whether the series can be sold into another language.

80.3M Views on featured work (combined, on the clients' own channels, as of 2026-09-10) · 2 Clients featured · 2020–2025 Featured work spans

A season is a batch, not a project. Serialised vertical work typically ships sixty to a hundred episodes of one to two minutes, off a shoot that took seven to ten days, and post is counted in days rather than months. That shape is much closer to a campaign than to a film — a set of deliverables, each measured on its own, against a fixed date — which is the way this studio has worked since 2018.

Dialogue is the spine, and in a two-minute episode there is nowhere to hide it. Every line carries plot; there is no establishing sequence to bury a problem under. Fast shoots produce the same set of problems every time — room tone that changes between setups, air conditioning, a boom that drifted, one performer several dB under the other. The decision that actually matters is which lines can be saved and which need replacing, and that is a judgement, not a plugin. Restoration tools take out the noise and some of the performance with it; a person decides how much to take.

⚠️ The M&E is the file that decides whether the series can travel. An M&E is the finished mix with the dialogue removed — music and effects only — and it is what a dubbing house needs to put another language over the picture. Without one, the series cannot be sold into a territory that does not speak its language. It has to match the final mix exactly in timing, level balance and edits, or the dub drifts against the cut. It is routinely missing, because the first release never needed it — and it is far cheaper to build alongside the mix than to reconstruct afterwards out of a finished stereo file.

Every episode is measured on its own, because integrated loudness is an average across a whole duration. An episode with a quiet cold open and one without will read differently off the same session and the same settings — measurement follows ITU-R BS.1770, the standard underneath every loudness figure in broadcast and streaming. A batch is not one file repeated a hundred times; it is a hundred measurements against one target, which is why the level convention is agreed before the first mix rather than discovered at delivery. Delivery is 48 kHz, 24-bit, the film and broadcast standard, with stems sample-aligned to the master so a later change drops in frame-accurate.

The phone is the venue, and that changes the mix rather than the master. A phone loudspeaker puts out almost nothing below roughly 400 Hz, so weight that lives in the sub arrives thin on the device the audience is actually holding. The answer is not to brighten everything — it is to carry the low end’s intention in the mids, where a small driver can reproduce it. Dialogue also sits further above music and effects than a cinema mix would tolerate, and the band that decides intelligibility runs roughly 2 to 4 kHz, where the consonants live — so a music bed written through it will fight every line underneath, and riding a fader afterwards does not fully recover what was arranged wrong.

⚠️ On delivery specifications, one thing is worth saying plainly: the vertical platforms do not publish them. We went looking. The major apps operate submission portals rather than public technical documents, and the loudness figures circulating online for them trace back to vendor compilations rather than to anything a platform issued. The practical consequence is that the numbers binding you are the ones in your contract, not the ones on a blog — so ask for them in writing before the mix, not after a rejection. Where a platform states nothing, the published standards are still the only defensible anchors: EBU R 128 sets −23 LUFS with a −1 dBTP ceiling for European broadcast, ATSC A/85 sets −24 LKFS with −2 dBTP for the US, and streaming platforms normalise toward roughly −14 LUFS on playback rather than rejecting anything. Pick one, write it down, and hold the whole season to it.

## Deliverables

- Per-episode final mix, each measured individually against one agreed target
- Stereo M&E stem per episode, matched to the final mix in timing and balance
- Separate dialogue stem, for dubbing and for pickups
- Score and sound-design beds, kept consistent across the season
- Batch delivery on a single naming and level convention
- Project archive, so a reshoot or a pickup matches the episodes around it

## Timeline

Turnaround is set against the shoot, and the batch is scheduled as a season rather than episode by episode

## Tools

- Pro Tools
- iZotope RX
- FabFilter
- Logic Pro
- Loudness metering

## Best for

Producers and production companies shooting serialised episodic work — vertical drama, web series, or long-form episodic — who need every episode finished, measured, and delivered as a set rather than one at a time.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is an M&E, and do I actually need one?

An M&E is your final mix with the dialogue taken out — music and effects only. It is what a dubbing house needs to put another language over your picture. If the series will ever be sold into a market that does not speak its language, you need one, and it is much cheaper to build during the mix than to reconstruct later from a finished stereo file.

### Can you take a full season rather than single episodes?

Yes — that is how the work is set up. A season is scheduled and delivered as a batch on one naming and level convention, so episode forty matches episode four. Measuring and mixing each episode individually is part of that, not an extra.

### What loudness do you deliver at if the platform has no published spec?

We ask for the target in writing and deliver to that. Where none exists, we agree one before the first mix and hold every episode to it, measured per ITU-R BS.1770. The figures circulating online for vertical platforms are not platform-published, so we do not treat them as a specification.

### The location sound on our shoot was rough. Can it be fixed?

Some of it, and the useful answer is which parts. Hum, air conditioning and steady background can usually be reduced. Heavy room reflections, a drifting boom, and a performance recorded far off-mic are where replacement is the honest recommendation. We go through the episodes and tell you which lines are worth saving before any work starts.

### Do you mix vertical episodes differently from broadcast work?

Yes. The venue is a phone speaker, so the low end is carried in the mids rather than the sub, and dialogue sits further above music and effects than a cinema mix would allow. It is a different mix, not a different master applied to the same one.

## Related work

- [Pakistan Cricket Board — Ho Raha Hai TVC 3 — Rishta (PAK v NZ)](https://elephantaudio.pk/portfolio/ho-raha-hai-3/raw)
- [Pakistan Cricket Board — Khel Tou Ho Raha Hai — Tailor (National T20 2021-22)](https://elephantaudio.pk/portfolio/ho-raha-hai-6/raw)
- [Airlift Express — Airlift Karao](https://elephantaudio.pk/portfolio/airlift-3/raw)

## Studio

- **Studio:** Elephant Audio — Lahore, Pakistan
- **Founder:** Abu Bakar Zahid — Founder, Managing Director & Music Producer at Elephant Audio
- **Website:** https://elephantaudio.pk
- **Contact:** abubakar@elephantaudio.pk