The New Master List of BASS in Movies with Frequency Charts - Page 118

I am surprised that the movie Valkyrie is not on the list. The first action scene in the film alone should warrant a mention. I have noted the scenes below with notable action (explosions or gun fire).

“Valkyrie” Blu-ray DTS-HD: MA 5.1

1. Chap 2 (0:04:38 - 0:5:55)
2. Chap 7 (0:22:25 - 0:22:58)
3. Chap 23 (1:11:15 - 1:11:27)
4. Chap 31 (1:47:30 - 1:49:25)

Also, the first page lists "The Dark Knight" and "Hellboy II," but the chapters were missing. Below you will find the chapters filled in for the films:

"The Dark Knight" Blu-ray TrueHD
1. Chap 2 (0:08:40)
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/2806/37748935dy8.jpg
2. Chap 9 (0:37:00)
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3567/52860767yy3.jpg
3. Chap 14 (0:56:46)
http://www.imagebam.com/image/83569221152675
4. Chap 20 (1:15:40 - 1:15:55)
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/5711/75072204dd9.jpg
5. Chap 20 (1:17:12 - 1:17:17)
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3694/22813014vf6.jpg
6. Chap 30 (1:52:30)
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/1622/24198356xe1.jpg
7. Chap 34 (2:08:20)
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6218/16178512ay1.jpg


"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" DC Blu-ray DTS-HD:MA 7.1
1. Chap 1 (0:03:17)
http://www.imagebam.com/image/98b9a121054319
2. Chap 1 (0:06:19)
http://www.imagebam.com/image/a5340d21054321
3. Chap 3 (0:14:30)
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/5351/hellyu9.jpg
4. Chap 4 (0:22:34)
http://www.imagebam.com/image/96dc1721054324
5. Chap 8 (0:42:30)
http://www.imagebam.com/image/194e3121054325
6. Chap 15 (1:20:39)
http://www.imagebam.com/image/bee59721054327
7. Chap 17 (1:30:10)
http://www.imagebam.com/image/c2904321054329

I have no experience mixing sound, but, as an avid fan for a decade and after conducting probably more serious analysis of ULF content in movie soundtracks through subwoofers of all sorts than the industry has in total, It's hard not to shed the 'H' in IMHO on this subject.

What 'they' can monitor on the dub stage is prehistoric. Someone should seriously have whomever buys the monitoring hardware ping me.

What new Meyer Sound subwoofer gives much below 30 Hz, except in their irrationally exuberant specs? As long as these pro sound guys are designing (copying age-old designs) subs and fudging the response specs, 'they' are never going to monitor any infrasonic content except by metering.

The only difference here is that the rooms are larger than HT rooms. All that means is that the PVG begins an octave lower so the flat response needs to be extended accordingly. The rest is achieved by displacement, power and signal chain integrity.

ToddAO spends ungodly cash on hardware and software. Heck, I would venture a guess that they spend more on furniture than they do on the low end reproduction systems. Personally, I'd rather sit on a cardboard box and have proper subs than sit on the bridge of the star ship Enterprise with a Meyer Sound ported sub.

Rant aside, I was compelled to go to the Cinema last night for the first time since 2007, based on the recommendations of friends, to see The Avengers. It sounded like the mains were LPF'd at 80 Hz and there were no subwoofers.

The movie is off-the-charts-by-far the best Marvel flick of all time. The writing is superb, the cast is as good as it gets, the villain is oscar-worthy, the visual effects are so good they have a chain hangin' off them.

You've got Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye vs Loki, his masterful machinations and his latest army of formidable dupes. How you gonna beat that? You ain't!

I sure hope the sound is as good as it needs to be to keep up with the rest of the movie. I got no indication from the AMC mega-plex sound system.

Really, really, really looking forward to popping this one in the BR player.

Bosso

I went to an "IMAX" here in Jax, FL over the weekend to see Avengers. I had never been to this particular theater before. I sat down and started watching the previews. HOLY ****! The lows were LOWWWWW...... I mean, I literally felt my teeth rattle at one point! Same thing happened at various points during the Avengers. I don't know if it was my seat location (Directly in the middle of the theater. The first row behind the main walkway split in the stadium seating. I sat there because I'm tall, and since there is only a walkway in front of those seats, I could stretch my legs out.) I couldn't believe what I was feeling/hearing.

Bosso.

I don't disagree that we could build rooms that go down much lower and deeper than we do... that's obvious.

But we have a standard in place in tens of thoussands of theaters... and many large rooms at that.

While we could do what you suggest, it would play nowhere else but in our stages..

While you and the other one percenters (owners of ULF capable HT setups) might be a vocal groups, and I for one wholly enjoy and appreciate your feelings and comments, anyone who works in our business always must balance our art with the commerce that allows us to keep creating it.

As I mentioned, we as an industry group are working on redefining our standards, measuring techniques and overall quality of sound for films.

D-Cinema has been a great boon for us.

We expect 35mm to be gone in the US by the end of 2013.

We as an industry need to help police the exhibitors and at the least get them to the point where the experience is consistent and as intended.

My local AMC has been really great in the last 2 years

All 16 screens have digital projection. We have a digital IMAX screen as well as an ETX auditorium (11.1 up mixed sound system. )

Those two rooms, which both have ticket surcharges, are consistently bright and at volume.

I was furious when I went to see Avengers in one of the smaller rooms.

Played at around 5 (about 4-6 DB low)

And the subs were OFF!!!!!!

Exhibitors need to get their acts together.

That's my rant.

Once again I appreciate your want for better reproduction systems.

But reality and our target venue will always drive how we set up our rooms.

To one of your other points....

Our B Chains are not cheap, but by no means are they expensive. A Meyer system for one of our larger rooms would run close to 100k....

Post sound isn't a huge money maker. Labor accounts for over 45-55% of what we charge per hour to... add engineering staff, runners, management, etc.

The relalsize that we are constantly upgrading our workstaions, servers, projectors, etc.

Outside of all that, however, we are in the business of client service.

Chairs and funrishing is important.

Not as important as what comes out of the speakers, or the talent that gets it there.

But I need to both make the client comfortable and also have a reasonably high confidence that I can take their mix, play it back in any theater tuned to our standard and it will translate.

Were working on getting it better for everyone....

PS. The Meyer systems are not wholly more capable that what we have...
Its the systems management, setup, efficiency and integration that are really fantastic.

Its not always about the specs.

Bosso, good points....


Marc, we've touched on this a few times, but I respectfully disagree with that approach.

In my opinion, to limit your own bandwidth because your matching the systems out in the field seems myopic. The music biz, and recording studios/mastering facilities have always had reference quality playback to assure they have a handle on the relative level of all content in the release.

I realize the film industry has some measure of standardization wrt levels, Eq etc., that the music biz doesn't have. It just seems inexplicable to me that the ability to reproduce the LFE spec doesn't exist at such a high caliber house as ToddAO.


I know there's financial considerations, but were not talking that much here. If you want pro boxes, someone like Danley could get you mucho closer than you are today. Even Meyer knows you've got to seal those boxes, as they did in the MythBusters brown note experiment.

-----------------


Damn, unbelievable!

In theaters, I'm convinced a significant amount of the harsh/bright quality I see so often described (and heard myself), comes from HOM distortions generated by horn loaded compression drive units and high acoustic levels. Unless the driver is bad, it's very likely it's the horn generating the nasties....


Thanks

I'll go one better... I saw Quantum of Solace in a theater where only the screen channels were working and the HF section of all those speakers were blown out. And the sound was all mono. Spent the whole movie not understanding a word that was said.

I've not been back to that theater since. Nothing worse than audio done wrong.

How do you feel about "upmixing"? IIRC, you were not in favor of it when you discussed Audyssey DSX in the Audyssey thread a while back. You thought it added something that was not the sound designer's intent. (If I am misrepresenting your position on this, I apologize. I'm going from memory, not from actually finding your posts in the Audyssey thread.)

Craig

And I will respectfully disagree back.

We have a standard.... not just for tuning but for frequency response.

I can't see how its myopic to mix for the venue where your content will be played back.

The problem with using the music business as an example.is while I agree that they do listen on "reference " gear to get a handle on things, they almost always then compromise the integrity of said track so it will play back as well on earbuds and car speakers.

We aren't shackled by having to do that (even on a near field mix...)

We mix the best product we can, knowing with a high degree of certainty that if we playback on a system that is set up to industry standards it should rather faithfully reproduce (outside of room acoustic issues, faulty or bad speakers, etc. )

You make a comment about pro boxes......

I assure you everything in our facility is "pro.."

If we wanted to extend low frequency reporduction we have hundreds of choices.... Danley need not help us get there.

As you know there are plenty of live reinforcement solutions.

Unless the theaters were committed to the same type of upgrade as a rule, its pointless.

And practically speaking, what if we could reproduce content down to 8-12Hz?

Should I filter it knowing it won't play anywhere else?

If I let it go, I know, based on experience, that I will over compensate the LFE down, and it will be anemic on 99% of the systems it plays back on...... and all that information takes up a lot if headroom (which is one of the reasons filtering isn't always a bad idea...)

Let me ask you a question back...

If I had the extra octave below 20hz on my stage, what will it gain me knowing it wont sound that way in any commercial cinema, and in a a miniscule number of home theaters?

I get that you guys are passionate about ULF....

We get rally close on our stages...... trust me that 4 x (or 8x on some of our stages) 18" subs will move the floors and shake the walls...

However, as I've pointed it out in the past, no one on here seems to be interested in reference playback..... if they were they would tune their rooms to match our standard.

Thanks for the civilized discussion. It's always great to have an informed debate with people I respect... and haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting in person.

Mixed on a Myers EXP dub stage, btw.

Craig... almost no one in the sound community is actually aware that AMC is doing this...

I'm starting to reach out to other mixers and industry pros...

AMC won't tell us what they are doing, and I'm sure this will start becoming a little more transparent to the creative community in the next couple of months...

I've seen a couple films in the ETX room... my impressions were that the imaging was indeed more diffuse (on both the front wall and surrounds to front pans....)

And they always play at a level that is easily reference, and I suspect a little louder...

One of the things that drives me nuts about that theater, and the IMAX across the hall, is all of the LFE sounds similar, and it shakes the ceiling tiles constantly... adding an annoying buzz to the track...

What are the standards? Are your standards for mixing for cinemas the same for mixing for the home? I actually owned cinema speakers to get the same experience but with more potent subs for my space which has an abundance of PVG. 20hz tuned subs are flat to 15hz in my room and 12hz tuned are flat to 9hz in my room. Sealed subs are flat to where ever my electronics rolloff.

I've been meaning to post this and kept forgetting.. I requested a room tuning before we started the last two shows and here is the after chart... scaled for channel comparisons...

I don't have the 1/6 and 1/12 octave charts...

Enjoy...

Wich is what I will experience (finally) when I go see it tomorrow at the Moore Warren IMAX! Lorax had nothing bass wise and I haven't been back since that one!! Fired up for the stomach kicks!

Sounded like my experience while watching avengers at burbanks etx

Two things:

1) DVD/BR sales/profits eclipse the box office every year, according to the stats I've seen. As far as what percentage of HT system owners get below 20 Hz, it would be zero if we weren't vocal. We've driven the state-of-the-art since its inception, mostly through the ID market. 25 Hz tuned ported was the king. Then, 20 Hz was the target. Soon, it dipped into the teens and then there were 10 Hz tuned subs. Then, sealed appeared, followed closely by claims of "no HPF".

No 'vocal', no push for a better product. Most of what a few of us debated in the beginning was a new frontier. I know that most of it is talked about these days as if it's always been common knowledge, but that simply is not so.

2) A simple processor can dial in any frequency response you wish at the click of a switch when you have a proper subwoofer system in place. Conversely, with a ported sub, you get one tune. I just don't see the problem with having the option to audition the soundtrack as the bigger audience is able to experience it, and, as it was designed to be experienced.


Same here. The movie was so strong, it overcame my disappointment is the piss-poor treatment of half of the experience, the audio.


And, once again for the record, when I look at disc sales/profits vs box office, I argue that your target venue is bass-ackwards.


Of course, I understand that. It just seemed the best illustration to make my point.

Bosso

Is that in response to me wanting to check out the EXP theaters

Btw did they know it was clipping when they made the mix??

Domestic box office last year was around 9.7 billion vs. $18B for all ancillary (DVD, BR sales rentals streaming combined..)

You state as that the "bigger audience" has better abilities than we do and we should just install a switch to hear what they can and we can't in a theaer..... I disagree strongly with that position.

You really want me to believe that position?

Tell me what part of that general audience has the ability to reproduce our standard (lets say flat to 20-25Hz) vs. what you think we should be able to go down to 5 or 10hz which is essentially one additional, inaudible octave.

To reproduce even to 20 properly I'll guess is small.....

10-20hz......

Less than 1/10 of 1% would be a guess... and that would be on the high side I'd imagine...

Please present the business proposal I should submit to our money folks to spend on a sound system that will pressurized a 5000 sq foot dub stage flat down to 10hz..... that will translate to no commercial theater in the world.

I don't think the ID food chain is going to stop innovating..... they're in business to make money after all...

I've no problem with products that go that low... but they were built to reproduce what content? Surely they knew what our standards are....

They surely give you something we can't.

Hopefully you take my comments for what they are which is counterpoint.

I've no issues with your opinions and value them.

And you are right about needing to make noise to enact changes....

I just think your opinion of what the general public needs and wants from us is way different than mine.

Edit to add.... its also important to remeber tthat despite this debate it'd not like.most mixers aren't going down that low regardless.

The general accepted standard for theaters is to be around 2 or 3 db down at 25 and then they fall off naturally below that.

Our chief engineer says there are a miniscule amount of theaters using 20" drivers but they only get you another 5hz down.

Adding more subs, of course, only gets you better coverage and more efficient output.

What about the home mix on bluray? Is it remastered again or just a copy of the original mix for the cinemas? Does it vary? Many of the movies for the hone has content under 20hz which cinema subs don't handle so I am assuming it is a remix for HT.

Don't assume anything.

Sometimes its the theatriclal, someumes a remastr.

However, except in only one instance I know of, there should be no difference in the low.frqeucny content of the two even if remastered.

If we remaster, we use the theatrical stems to do so... we don't remix from the final elements.

Its already cooked so to speak.

Thanks for posting here Marc. Good to finally have some industry feedback...

To the best of my knowledge, Audyssey DSX is not a matrixing system. It uses high and wide channels to add 'reflections' to the sound, making it seem as if you are in a theater-like space....it does not 'fill in' pans from surrounds to mains....

FilmMixer,

On the room tuning graph, does the high end drop off due to reverb issues in the room? It is a significant drop above 2kHz....

JSS

X curve.

<20hz content is fun, if it's all the same to you guys in the business.. leave it in
Make it sound good for commercial theaters and mix in some subharmonic content for the fans

There are a lot examples of films featuring <20hz content, which were a succes at both the box office and in retail, so these mixes certainly do translate.

If they can't hear sub 20hz in the dub stages, than how can they mix it in?

Is sub 20hz content just added by mistake? Well not really mistake but can't think of a better word for now lol

This is the quote that inspired me to post ^^

I really don't care what the industry does or thinks. Nor do I care what the "vast majority" of consumers have, want, know or care about.

I'm just tellin' ya that it's absurd to me in this day and age that you can't monitor the sound effects you're supposed to be mixing.

Every time I stumble upon this subject, I picture a blind editor, chuckle, shake my head and move on.

FWIW, the term "pressurize" is an invented and abused cliche with no meaning to this subject.

For example, if you're in this dub stage of a gozillion cubic feet, or whatever it is, and someone comes into the room and lets the door slam behind him, you're monitoring ULF because the event has content to DC and is not being filtered through your big plywood box 25 Hz ported subs.

It does not have to be 125dB (which I assume people mean when they say "pressurize") to be monitored. It just has to be there. I'll write the proposal for you.

BTW, who presented the business proposal for this silliness?...


And they forgot to mention ...but with a subwoofer from the 40s.

Bosso

It's probably a good thing for us that the soundstages have subs that suck. If they were able to monitor all that ULF content that accidentally makes it into some of our cult favorites, they would filter it out.

We would have left WOTW dead and buried back in 2005 if it's ULF content had been filtered out.

That attitude says all I need to know...

It's, IMO, the easy way out of having an educated discussion about why things are they way they are...

No more from me on this subject..

Enjoy your thread.

Dammit guys.... He was openly sharing insider information with us. Leave ego's at the door please.

Yes, in a matter of speaking.

I spoke with someone which was there..

The clipping is the result of the buss limiters.