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The Low Frequency Content Thread (films, games, music, etc)


maxmercy

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I took the liberty of posting a reference to the analysis of STID on the "End the Lodness War"- group on fb:

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The disease has spread to movies as well, reports indicate that the new movie Star Trek Into Darkness is severely clipped, and compressed.

Given the size of budget for this kind of movie, this failure is a quite remarkable achievement. Disasters never has one single cause, this requires three failures; one - the use of an incapable sound monitoring system, two - decision makers with severe hearing loss, three - incompetent sound engineers with no knowledge of even the most basic signal processing theory.

This movie should have real demo potential, instead it is a movie I will never consider spending my money on.

Reference:
data-bass.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/12-the-low-frequency-content-thread-films-games-music-etc/page-65

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I am very, very, dissappointed.

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Thanks, Abrams.....thanks. You took what was one of the best soundtracks ever and followed it up with complete garbage.

 

No, seriously.

 

Bra-vo.

 

The correct thing to do is what Metallica did with their horribly clipped offering (Death Magnetic): fix it.

 

Please don't do the same thing to Episode VII.

 

EDIT - The worst part about soundtracks like this is that it will sound WORSE on more accurate speakers....crap speakers will round off the sharp corners more than good ones.

 

 

JSS

 

My theory is that Abrams got into the session and twirled some knobs.

 

Everyone believes he can mix better than the engineers. Many years ago, I used to have a bazillion band graphic EQ and love to watch (stoned) visitors dork with it to "make it sound better".

 

It wasn't connected to the stereo... thank goodness.

 

In every case where there was a GEQ in the chain (other's stereos), it was just painful to watch (and listen to).

 

I used to tell them "When the guy who wrote and played the bass line tells you that's how it should sound, sit on your hands and just listen".  :P

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I took the liberty of posting a reference to the analysis of STID on the "End the Lodness War"- group on fb:

--------

The disease has spread to movies as well, reports indicate that the new movie Star Trek Into Darkness is severely clipped, and compressed.

 

Given the size of budget for this kind of movie, this failure is a quite remarkable achievement. Disasters never has one single cause, this requires three failures; one - the use of an incapable sound monitoring system, two - decision makers with severe hearing loss, three - incompetent sound engineers with no knowledge of even the most basic signal processing theory.

 

This movie should have real demo potential, instead it is a movie I will never consider spending my money on.

 

Reference:

data-bass.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/12-the-low-frequency-content-thread-films-games-music-etc/page-65

--------

 

I am very, very, dissappointed.

 

Yeah, sucks doesn't it.

 

Who knows what's at play. it could be "artistic license" from the idiot shot-caller sitting in the session, asking, urging, insisting that the engineers up the levels, and hit the format hard.

 

Louder's better, right? :unsure:

 

The film industry prides themselves on standards, laughingly pointing out the lack thereof throughout their brethren in the music world. 

 

Who knows what happened.  

 

(I was an early adopter of DAT. I remember making mix tape/greatest hits DAT recordings of CDs. You'd have to search out the hottest peak on the recording, and set levels accordingly. Once or maybe twice the levels would come up within a dB or so of full scale, .. and that was it. These days, finding the recorded peak would be much easier.)    

 

 

We enjoyed two movies this weekend. Now You See Me, and Place Beyond the Pines. It's a good thing we watched NYSM first, because the latter was so heavy, so cerebral, just damn good IMO. That said, for me, it is so compellingly exhausting. Had never seen it/heard of it, took a chance and it paid. Not a special effects spectacular, by any measure. Now You See Me had some nice LFE.  

 

Thanks                

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U-571:

 

Level - 3 Stars (108.88dB composite)

Extension - 5 Stars (8Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (26.75dB)

Execution - 5 Stars by Poll.  Very little clipping, very well done.

 

Overall - 4.25 Stars

 

Recommendation - Buy

 

 

The LFE channel peaks at -6dBFS in this film, but is still well-balanced.  If you can change the LFE level (not subwoofer) in your AVR by +6dB, you can have a film that has more level down low (see attached).

 

 

JSS

post-20-0-67923000-1379308917_thumb.jpg

post-20-0-08779100-1379308929_thumb.jpg

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I want to thank Nube and anyone else that submitted graphs for Olympus Has Fallen. The various discussions about it, and posts here about it I skipped over, as to try to preserve as many details as possible about the big scenes and any plot surprises, etc. We watched it last night, the effects didn't disappoint. I see now there was really few aspects of the plot that needed preservation :rolleyes:, but it was fun, well worth the time, and extraordinarily demanding of the subwoofer system.

 

Subjectively, that may have been the toughest material I've likely ever put our home through. Fwiw; mid 70's, big sprawling all brick ranch, built on a crawl, and everything was pumping pretty aggressively during that one. My son, set up with pillows and lying on the floor, and at the conclusion of the big well known scene, jumped up and said "put it on pause, ... man that was like a back massage! I've never felt anything like that before."

 

Easter Sunday         

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World War Z (7.1 DTS-HD MA)

 

Level         - 4 Stars (110.7dB composite)

Extension  - 4 Stars (11Hz)

Dynamics  - 5 Stars (28.66dB)

Execution  - 4 Stars (by poll)

 

Overall      - 4.25 Stars

 

Recommendation - Buy (by poll)

 

Notes:  The mix sounded pretty clean. (Will try to perform a clipping analysis of the movie in the coming days.) It made pretty good use of LFE to create tension early in the movie, though none of it is super deep aside from one sequence that has near constant 7-10Hz content.  It does have other content down to 11Hz, maybe a tad lower, but it's not loud and likely can't even really be noticed beyond the higher level & higher frequency bass content.  The sweeps are pretty ridiculous and overdone as the action heats up - there are a TON going up & down, and they're not bad, but maybe employed a bit too frequently.

 

PvA:

 

post-17-0-79993600-1379425744_thumb.png

 

The movie's biggest effect (grenade sweep) is at the end of this clip from 01:04:46 - 01:05:35:

 

post-17-0-71508500-1379453949_thumb.png

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^^^ It's not terrible, by any means. It gets to 18 Hz and is loud. But it does miss the extension we love and is a letdown based off expectations and the previous movie. I really enjoyed the movie, personally.

I do agree with you. I watched last night and loved the movie. It does have plenty of bass, but like you said, does not dig deep. But again, one of the best movies I have seen in awhile. 

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A movie that I absolutely love is Zero Dark Thirty. I have never heard much talk about this film, but there are some good explosions in that film, I jumped out of my seat on a couple of them. Also the black hawks flying at the end have some thump. A little talk of Hurt Locker going around makes me want to compare ZDT to the HL.

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You meaning when Colonel Cambridge is walking down the street towards the rest of the crew in the Hummer....and then he suddenly vanish from surface in a lot of smoke...?

 

attachicon.gifHurtLocker_ch8.jpg

That would be the one.

 

It is the loudest peak on the track, not necessarily the loudest perceived. There is a difference. We perceive something of less SPL but longer duration as louder. Also, just like FOH says, the room is the final piece of the equation. Resonances in furniture play a huge part in our perception of ULF.

 

JSS

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