The New Master List of BASS in Movies with Frequency Charts - Page 9

Watched Green Lantern today and thought the LFE was decent, anyone else seen it yet? What did you think of the LFE?

Also have anyone here seen Super 8 yet?

As promised, LFE Spectrums for entire films. What you see is an average LFE graph, and a peak graph above it. The grpahs include the LFE channel and redirected bass from mains/center/surrounds. My BluRay/AVR/Soundcard has a rolloff starting at about 7Hz and is 6dB down at 5Hz, and falls off the cliff below that.

Let's begin:


Batman Begins:



The Dark Knight:


Casino Royale:


BlackHawk Down:


Iron Man:


As you can see, most of these begin to roll off below 30Hz. Likely because Cinema subs are usually vented boxes tuned to 25-30Hz. BlackHawk Down has the enormous spikes of LFE down at 7Hz and 16Hz in the fmaous "Irene" scene.

More to come....

JSS

More...

Transformers:



Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen:


Iron Man 2: note that more sub 30Hz stuff was used for the sequel:


Now for some below 30Hz action:

Scott Pilgrim:


And by far still the best use of the bandwidth thus far, The Incredible Hulk:


Tron Legacy, Titan AE, and Battle LA are on the list of to-dos, as well as old favs, like the Star Wars movies, the new Star Trek, and others. Requests are welcome.

Interesting to note that most of the films roll off below 30Hz. Black Hawk Down, The Incredible Hulk break that mold. Scott Pilgrim to a lesser extent.

JSS

Drive Angry has a few good spots of long low LFE but not that great overall.

MaxMercy how are you doing those graphs? Does it do them automatically, or did you plot them manually?

I use the Spectrum Graph function in SpecLab, and set it to show peak and average readings. The small window on the bottom is the waterfall graph. I then highpass all my speakers so that anything below 200Hz is sent to the sub out, to get all redirected bass in the graph as well.

It gives you an overall picture of LF content in an entire film. And it tells you where the strongest LFE lies, and overall extension of the movie. I imagine Tron Legacy and Battle LA will be similar to Incredible Hulk, by all descriptions.

I cannot reproduce below 16-17Hz well, but there are others who can (bosso comes to mind).

Any suggestions for other movies you want spectrums for?


JSS

But do you have it run for the entire movie (in other words you have it running for 2 hours etc) and then you take the screenshot, or does it do it instantly?

Has to run for the entire film. That's the part that sux. More later...

JSS

Yea I wish there was a way to do it instantly from reading it straight off the disc. But still it gives interesting data. Your to-do list sounds good, and I'd be interested in seeing graphs for the other 5 star films (War Of The Worlds, Cloverfield, 9, etc). Would the other 5 star films look similar to The Incredible Hulk's graph? If it does, it might make rating LFE a bit easier.

Also I don't think it's necessary to plot the frequencies higher than 120, they're not considered LFE. I think that'd make it even easier to read the graphs.

TG is nothing to write home about. A remake that didn't need to be made with less than maybe five minutes of decent LFE.


I watched the entire extended edition last night. Didn't notice that part, but only because the double tapped horns had my own hairs moving most of the time. First time I'd seen the movie on decent audio gear... it was fun

Will have to use that scene for demo material when I finally do my show-off video of both horns in action.

Edit - almost forgot, I picked up Hostage this week on Blu-Ray. Good for around four stars, I think.

The LFE channel occasionaly contains more than you think above 120Hz, so I monitor up to 200 to see....revenge of hhe fallen' strongest single effect has a component at 120hz which is above all others....

JSS

MaxMercy, I love those bass average charts.

I highly recommend: Titan Ae, Tron Legacy, Cloverfield, Star Trek, WotW, BattleLA, Star Wars 1&2 for more averages.

Star Wars 1977, before a dedicated subwoofer channel existed:

That 16Hz on the average graph is artifact.

Star Wars 2006, after many new scenes added, and some soundtrack changes:


BTW - Nearly ALL of the bass in this movie is attributable to one thing: the Millenium Falcon.

Tron: Legacy


Surprised to see the average graph on Tron: Legacy??

This movie is a bass fest. If it seems less than impessive, it's because I had to turn the signal down; I was afraid of clipping the input on the sound card.....

It is a 30-40Hz FESTIVAL. Wherever you hear bass in this movie, there is a 30-40Hz component in there. It's not that there isn't much below, there is. But the 30-40Hz content is unbelieveable It's amlost always there. The average graph does not lie. Yes, strong bass all the way down to 10Hz, but the super low stuff comes in small bursts when needed. It seems the sound guys wanted this to definitely have impact in a real movie theater, but also have some extra goodies to playback for the systems at home that can extend down to single digits...

So, The Incredible Hulk is still the bass champ.....for now.

Scott, I'll do the requested films as I get time. I have to wait on Netflix to get some of them....will complete the StarWars Saga as well...


JSS

Hi Max,

Great stuff, as usual.

It's always cool to be able to 'see' what is discussed, and especially cool to see confirmation of an opinion for many years that most took an opposite side against.

To be more specific, back in the heyday of "human hearing dictates a house curve", I argued that the ELC is built into the mixer's hearing so the low end in the audible range is adjusted for you during production and applying a post EQ house curve is unnecessarily taxing your system and presenting a distorted low end.

Here's the HULK graph you posted with the 100dB ELC curve laid over:



Of course, below about 25 Hz is not supposed to be audible, much less equally audible to 1,000 Hz and the discs that contain LFE composed of synth + recorded real events will have content to DC, but, below 25 Hz the curve flattens out.

This is mainly to keep the data from exceeding the ceiling of the format and, in most cases, still has a relatively boosted level vs the actual event.

Awesome work, Doc.

Bosso

Hey, thanks! Of the Star Wars movies, I'm mostly interesting in the Phantom Menace and Clones. Those were bass monsters. Omg lightsaber bass!!! RotS was bass anemic.

Totally not surprised about Tron. It is ...umm, bassy. Tons of 30hz bass in my room.

Bosso, now that's interesting! I've tried house curves over the years and I never really liked the sound of it. I already have enough 10hz-50hz.

"U-571" is only rated 4 stars?

The difference between The Incredible Hulk and Tron Legacy is incredible, it's like if TIH is in it's own level.

Yea Tron: Legacy has amazing 30-40hz, but TIH doesn't seem far off either. Judging from your graphs MAxMercy, I get:

30hz:
Tron: Legacy: -43db average, -16db peak
The Incredible Hulk: -41db average, -17db peak
winner: TIH but close

33hz:
Tron: Legacy: -39db average, -17db peak
The Incredible Hulk: -40db average, -14db peak
winner: Tron: Legacy but very close

35hz:
Tron: Legacy: -43db average, -22db peak
The Incredible Hulk: -41db average, -16db peak
winner: TIH but close

38hz:
Tron: Legacy: -42db average, -19db peak
The Incredible Hulk: -39db average, -14db peak
winner: TIH

40hz:
Tron: Legacy: -43db average, -18db peak
The Incredible Hulk: -38db average, -13db peak
winner: TIH

Actually judging from these face-to-face numbers I'd say The Incredible Hulk is slightly better than Tron: Legacy at 30-40hz!

You cannot go by overall levels.....I look at the shape of the curve. TIH wins hands down in extension. But I recorded Tron about 10dB lower, IIRC. I recorded TIH a while back.

In a perfect world, I'd go back and level match all of these.....but I don't always have the receiver set at the same volume, as I have come close to clipping the input on the soundcard....some films are just mixed hot, it seems.

These are level-matched:

Empire Strikes Back:


Return of the Jedi, largely untouched for the DVD release, note the rolloff much like the 1977 StarWars:


Episode I, now we're getting somewhere:


Episode II:


Yes, these are level-matched. I was surprised to see Episode I be about 5dB down from Episode II....I ran them back to back while doing other stuff... Episode II is a bass monster, much like Tron Legacy, with 40-50Hz madness... The opening onslaught of the Naboo ship flying in and exploding literally dominate this graph, not much changes the peak structure after that. The blip at 68Hz in the peak graph is Anakin killing the poisonous grubs with his saber. Definite chest resonance there.....Overall, this film does very well. Good extension down to the low 20s, and some info below that...too bad the writing and acting could have been better...

Episode II comes close to clipping the soundcard. This is why Tron was turned down....Tron would have been near Episode II level if recorded the same way, but I was simply afraid to clip and have to start over in the middle of the film...Tron really made me wonder about my mains' integrity once into the grid....

JSS

Just like Bosso said, it seems nearly every film accounts for ELC curves down to 30Hz, just like you'd expect a good sound designer or mixer to do....after all, they are using ELC (their own ears) to mix the stuff... Most seem to rolloff at 12dB/octave after that, with occasional peaks that don't follow the rules....I imagine this is to make sure Professional Cinema Subwoofers do not explode or sound horrible....

The Incredible Hulk is an exception. Only film I have seen nearly flat to 9Hz both in peak and average levels...but Cloverfield and others are on the list....

More to come. Only ones I have left to run from my stash are Episode III, Quantum of Solace, The Matrix and the Matrix Reloaded. Of those, only Quantum is BluRay...

JSS

PS - Also of note: Look at Transformers. Although at a lower level, it has REAL signal down to 3Hz. That's below my system's rolloff, hard to say the level it was actually recorded at. It is when Jazz is blasted by Megatron. Bosso, you got a mic'ed graph of that scene? IIRC, it's the lowest effect in the film.

Many of the other films listed have content that low....look at Scott Pilgrim....all the way to 1Hz.

I watched Battle: Los Angeles last week. Friggin' Awesome!!! I always watch movies and hope for some strong heart pounding action. And, it delivered!! In fact, because of how it sounded on my system, it may be one of my favorite movies. Loved it!

I haven't seen inception since it was in the theater. I will be watching that this week.
-Chuck

War of the Worlds (Blu-Ray, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1) smashes The Incredible Hulk!

Episode 1&2 have my favorite bass of the series. Ep2 is LOUD!

Very interested to see how Cloverfield turns out. Matrix Reloaded should have plenty of stuff that goes down below 20hz.

One thing I'd like to see... Master and Commander. Both the dvd and the blu-ray A/B'd against one another with these bass average charts. That would be cool. I'll pony up the cash (or discs) to send to you, even.

Gah!

Leto (or should I say Duke?),

Hey, here are my SpecLab FFT settings so that we can all be on same page...







WOTW looks VERY impressive, thanks for the graph! Looks like your signal chain can go all the way to DC without roll off as well. Very nice... Just sux that I can't monitor much below 16Hz, loks like there is a LOT there in WOTW. I can do 10Hz at 93dB, but that's all at 5% THD....

I've heard that Matrix Revolutions is also very good for subsonics...

JSS

Yes it is. Has quite a bit of info going down to 10hz, at least. Pretty much all of the parts where Neo sees in the 'golden matrix vision' has deep stuff. The part with the machine face has good stuff in the 20's. Club sequence is good and check out some of the hits and the giant water bubbles during the finale.

Just watched Battle LA and was glad I bought it. Not a bad flick with some great sound. Had to turn it down a bit since we started watching it a little later than usual so this weekend wife is outta town and I can crank this thing haha.

Might have to do a LFE marathon during the day Saturday.

Anyone know whether the pacific on blu ray is worth picking up? LFE wasn't bad on cable, thinking better on blu ray.

Didn't see it on cable but picked up the blu ray and LFE is very nice on The Pacific as is the overall mix and surround channel use. I believe the user Filmmixer worked on one or more of the eps and he does great work! Solid addition to any collection IMO.

Thank you.

Actually my name comes from Duke's grandson, Leto Atreides II

Thanks for the settings, mines were similar. I'll use your settings after Cloverfield.

I've got the Matrix trilogy on blu-ray, maybe I'll do the average spectogram graphs for them one of these days.

btw your graph for The Incredible Hulk, was that the DVD version or was it the blu-ray version?