Gerard will be diving into the contenders for Best Sound Mixing in a future Tech Support column, but for now, it’s safe to say that, as always, the latest “Transformers” installment will figure in heavily. We spotlighted the sound work on the film back in June.

Greg P. Russell is at the mixing station once again on “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” handling the implementation of sound effects. In a recent interview with Michael Coleman of the SoundWorks Collection, specifically detailing the unique 7.1 surround sound mix of the effort, he lays out how special the platform really is.

“I knew from the first early days that this was going to be special,” Greg says in the piece. “This was going to be uniquely different than what we’ve done before and there was going to be a lot of surround information in the movie. It’s wonderful to have that kind of discreet feel, to have distinct information. And it’s clean. You’re hearing that separation. So the definition of what you’re creating I find to be superior to the standard 5.1 experience.”

For some more background, here is the Soundworks Collection’s coverage of a recent 7.1 symposium held at Dolby up in Northern California.

Reviews of the DVD/Blu-ray for “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” have already called the home theatre mix “reference quality.” It was my favorite of a franchise I haven’t really liked all that much, but the below-the-line stuff on this series has been impeccable. So I’ll pick it up on Blu-ray when it drops tomorrow, if just to give my surround system a hearty workout and hear Russell and the rest of the team’s hard work once more.

Here’s the interview in full:

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/29745810 w=640&h=360]

And by the way, I just noticed the SoundWorks Collection recently profiled the popular “Angry Birds” video game. That is certainly worth a look (and listen). What a great idea.