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

[maxmercy]

Flight of the Phoenix:

Level - 5 Stars (114.39dB composite) 
Extension - 5 Stars (8Hz)
Dynamics - 5 Stars (28.14dB)
Execution - 5 Stars - This is a classic and well done LFE film. Many demos done to this track.

Overall - 5 Stars - Only the second film to earn a 5 Star overall rating. This thing is a beast.  Finer PvA settings miss the 8-11Hz transient that happens around the 57min mark and garners this film its 5 star extension rating.

Recommendation - Buy. Even if just for demo material. The film is OK to good, the bass excellent.


JSS

[maxmercy]

Superman Returns:

Level - 4 Stars (110.29dBHz)
Extension - 5 Stars (1Hz)
Dynamics - 5 Stars (28.85dB)
Execution - 4 Stars - Just a little more level and you would be in 5-Star territory. Very well done LF mix.

Overall - 4.25 Stars

Recommendation - Rent. This is a good film, but I don't like it enough to buy. Others may disagree.


JSS

Scene Captures:

[nube]

I'm shocked and awed to see FOTP getting 5 stars! Look at that ENORMOUS hump in avg. level around 32hz. I didn't realize it had content down in the ULF range - prolly because I haven't watched it yet with the sealed setup. Great to know, though. Huge level and great dynamics as measured! What are some of the other demo-worthy scenes besides the big plane crash?

 

As to the clowns over at AVS, well, boys will be boys. Don't let them kill your enthusiasm, Dave. What you guys are doing here is a monumental effort, and a labor of love that has real merit to the community. JPC is a jerk, and his whole MO is to try to get under your skin by being a contrarian. He probably will continue, but I hope it won't have any bearing on this project - and, at least they haven't come over here en masse.

 

JSS - glad you decided to keep the 1,1 settings for the graphs. I think that makes the most sense, and it requires no rework. And, in the future if there's some question about films' short transient content, perhaps they can be re-run with 4,0.25 settings or something if there's a question of or an indication that they were getting shortchanged.

[raffin]

Everyone's hard work here is greatly appreciated! Bosso, hope you can just ignore the idiots and continue to post.

 

My suggestion: just make this thread private so you have to be a member to read it or post to it. If the riff raff can't read it they can't post or bogart graphs. If they register and then misbehave they get banned. Should make everyones life here a whole lot simpler.

[Nicke]

Nice with a new bassforum,hope the trolls stays out of it,god job all involved : )

[Nicke]

Oohhh forgott,looking forward to see Finding nemo and Pulse charts

 

[maxmercy]

I was also blown away by the content in FOTP. It has sub-10Hz at the level of a 3 to 4-Star film, then adds another 10dB for the theatrical subwoofer region! Too bad I can barely sit through the movie. Giovanni Ribisi (sp?) just grates at me in this film.

 

I have found out how to make a BD-5 to calibrate levels for those who will be contributing scene waterfall captures, and to see if a person's AVR will clip with 0dBFS+ (with bass management). More on this later.

 

Its looking like Underworld:Awakening will get the LF Film of the Year for 2012. I should get TDKR later this month. In the meantime, I have the following films coming:

 

Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi

Master and Commander DVD

LOTR and Matrix Trilogies

Live Free or Die Hard

Cloverfield

Inception

The Haunting DVD

Titan AE

Pearl Harbor

Running Scared

The Day After Tomorrow

Knowing

Batman:Under the Red Hood

Pulse

Percy Jackson

The Grey

Serenity

The Hurt Locker

Hellboy II

Finding Nemo

Monster House

 

 

And I'll run a chart for the Telarc 1812 Overture and Also Sprach Zarathrusta for FOH...

 

 

JSS

[maxmercy]

Amusing link. If you have some free time and need some chuckles, here's a good one

http://northisup.com...he-hope-mirror/

 

 

Max

 

Genius. My fav:

 

"20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet."

 

JSS

[djbluemax1]

Heh, I received an infraction because one of those whiney morons reported my post calling JPC a moron and inferring that he's a d****bag (the last line of my post was, "BTW, what's the name of that feminine hygiene product that begins with a 'd' and ends with 'bag'?"), for stealing Dave's graphs without even acknowledging that they are his, and for deliberately posting the link to this thread while quoting a post requesting that any folks knowing about this thread NOT post a link to it on that thread.

 

Bet it it was JPC himself whining. Anyway, I've already reported JPC's post for intellectual property theft AND sent Mark Rubin a PM about it. I'd urge other avs'ers to do the same seeing as how that moron has potentially cost us Dave's contributions of his time and graphs. In fact, I wonder if we can sue?

 

 

Max

 

P.S. to avoid cluttering up the thread with more off-topic content, we can continue this discussion via PM's or elsewhere.

[FilmMixer]

Title Block corrected. Thanks for the heads up. For clarification, it's Gregg Landaker.

 

Dave.. spell check stinks sometimes.

 

If you ever have a question about who the FX mixers are on a show, please let me know before you spend time with your charts.. I'll be happy to ask around if I don't know the answer.

[kbarnes70]

Heh, I received an infraction because one of those whiney morons reported my post calling JPC a moron and inferring that he's a d****bag (the last line of my post was, "BTW, what's the name of that feminine hygiene product that begins with a 'd' and ends with 'bag'?"), for stealing Dave's graphs without even acknowledging that they are his, and for deliberately posting the link to this thread while quoting a post requesting that any folks knowing about this thread NOT post a link to it on that thread.

 

Bet it it was JPC himself whining. Anyway, I've already reported JPC's post for intellectual property theft AND sent Mark Rubin a PM about it. I'd urge other avs'ers to do the same seeing as how that moron has potentially cost us Dave's contributions of his time and graphs. In fact, I wonder if we can sue?

 

 

Max

 

P.S. to avoid cluttering up the thread with more off-topic content, we can continue this discussion via PM's or elsewhere.

 

Just one observation before dropping it: J P Crass's stolen images of Bosso's graphs and charts have been removed now from AVS.

[Infrasonic]

Max, definitely add the recent-ish Superman Returns to that list. It had PLENTY of strong ULF throughout. I did several charts on that one. They are archived in all the old waterfall charts on AVS or I could post them up here but I don't want to muck up what you have been doing.

 

Ah! I post a couple.

 

 

 

 

[djbluemax1]

 

 

Just one observation before dropping it: J P Crass's stolen images of Bosso's graphs and charts have been removed now from AVS.

Yup, I reported it and PM'd Mark Rubin about it.

 

 

 

Max

[maxmercy]

Scott,

 

I'll add the scene caps to the Superman Returns post. It was a 4.25 Star film

 

Here's where I posted it:

 

http://data-bass.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/12-the-low-frequency-content-thread-films-games-music-etc/page__view__findpost__p__466

 

 

FilmMixer,

 

Do you know why someone would use a 4th or 8th order highpass near 30Hz for most of TDKR, vs just the opening scene?

 

I should complete the Star Wars Saga today or tomorrow.

[TimVG]

I just watched TDKR. I liked the movie itself.

About the sound: Was it bad? Not at all. Could have it been a whole lot better? No doubt.

 

Some issues: apart from the aggressive (harsh) mix, the bass, although present and used with abbudance sounded very bloated and monotonous. I can definitely put the graphs in perspective. Less (mid)bass and some ULF could (would) have done wonders for this one. You begin to wonder about stuff when Tom Danley's firework recording has more feel to it than a nuclear bomb exploding in TDKR.

Another issue I had was Bane's voice. OK, they dubbed it over, but did they have to make it so apparent? Not only was his voice twice as clear as the other characters' it was also twice as loud which was really annoying to me. But as this is Data-Bass I'll go back to just that, and I'm going to go out on a limb here. But if this is the result from using 30hz ported subs at the mixing facility, they need to upgrade their equipment. I'm sorry to be blunt, but does anyone find it normal that we, the amateurs, have better, more capable equiment, than the people making multi-million dollar movies?

 

I can understand the argument that these movies are mixed for commercial theaters. But don't BR/DVD home released get a different mix anyway? Even if that's not the case, a lot of movies have been released with the exact properties a lot of people here are looking for, so we know it can be done.

 

It's a shame really, so much potential in some of the latest releases, and it's all wasted on what appears to be a loudness war. I wish some of the guys in charge could experience something like WOTW or HTTYD or any other 4+ star movie vs TDKR or The Avengers in a capable theater, and then have them say they liked the latter presentation better.

 

I watched the movie Brave yesterday, apart from one scene there wasn't much below 30hz either, but at least it was a good presentation. I'd take that above TDKR anyday.

[Infrasonic]

Scott,

 

I'll add the scene caps to the Superman Returns post. It was a 4.25 Star film

 

Here's where I posted it:

 

http://data-bass.ipb...indpost__p__466

 

 

FilmMixer,

 

Do you know why someone would use a 4th or 8th order highpass near 30Hz for most of TDKR, vs just the opening scene?

 

I should complete the Star Wars Saga today or tomorrow.

 

Max, that's so weird! I never saw your SR report until today. Blah. I feel dumb. Oh well. Not bad results. Thanks!

[MKtheater]

I love these stupid arguments on AVS. They actually have it ass backwards and are that point. They say under 20hz don't matter because they don't feel them in real life, WTF! The whole reason films with ULF's are better is because that is what happens in real life! Full Bandwidth response is just plain and simple, more accurate to real life. Why is this so hard to grasp? The problem I have is if the recording engineer records real sounds which will have ULF's just from natural effects and then it gets filtered throughout the process. I say why can't they just leave the mix alone and let who ever will playback the movie decide if they want to run a HPF or not. Movie theaters can run their own and people with ported subs can run theirs and let the people who can reproduce the full band do so. Why is that so hard to do?

 

BTW, I love the FOTP and WOTW scenes for demos, I still use them today as they are the awesome to make your friends crap their pants. I just watched the PODS emerge and plane crash from both back to back to demo my system yesterday. I can tell you that the difference between multiple sealed systems with plenty of displacement and power is a huge difference when you drop off at 15hz. Of course it won't watching the Avengers.

[Infrasonic]

Mild and easy suggestion?

 

Now that we have quite a few documented DB waterfalls, I think post #1 should be updated to list the movie link categorized in star number form. 5 star movies, 4-4.75 movies, 3-3.75 movies, etc. That way at a glance someone could look for the best of the best or just see what the movie they wanted to know about got listed as.

 

Lol. Sorry to ask for such but if it's something I could do, I'd do it but I can't edit other peoples posts.

[maxmercy]

Done. Later this week is LOTR Extended Editions and Master and Commander BluRay vs DVD

 

JSS

[Infrasonic]

Oh heeellll yeah!

[Infrasonic]

Oh wow. You really out did yourself on the star rating thing. I was thinking moreso anything that was 4-4.75 and on and on but... alright.

 

 

LOL @ Avengers being a the very bottom of the list. One would think we had some agenda around here.

[wth718]

Any plans to rate Cloverfield? Was considered a heavy-hitter, but seems to have fallen out of favor.

 

I have a couple of other, less often-mentioned suggestions if you're interested.

[maxmercy]

These are the films on the way:

 

Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi

Master and Commander DVD

LOTR and Matrix Trilogies

Live Free or Die Hard

Cloverfield

Inception

The Haunting DVD

Titan AE

Pearl Harbor

Running Scared

The Day After Tomorrow

Knowing

Batman:Under the Red Hood

Pulse

Percy Jackson

The Grey

Serenity

The Hurt Locker

Hellboy II

Finding Nemo

Monster House

The Dark Knight Returns

 

 

In other news, I have been making some progress on the scenecap tutorial. I have found out a way to encode an AVCHD/DVD/BD-5 with sweeps and tones in 5.1 Dolby Digital with no dialnorm or filtering. It will have sweeps and tones on it in order to be able to calibrate SpecLab so that everyone can have a flat to DC scene captures (for those who want to contribute to the thread). It will also have a 'disaster scenario' track where all 5 channels + LFE are encoded at 0dBFS, for a total of a 123dB signal. It will be a good check for clipping anywhere in the signal chain, as it represents nearly the absolute worst case scenario for your subwoofer out (I can't encode in 7.1, oh well).

 

As soon as I get that disc together and the tutorial (hopefully around New Years), I'll post it up and we can hopefully have others contributing to the thread soon, and I will link as appropriate to the proper posts.

 

In the meantime, I'll keep craning out the PvA graphs as I get the films.

 

I may be able to make a 'deluxe version' of the test disc with some of the Dolby, THX and DTS trailers, but it will only work for folks with BluRay burners.

 

 

JSS

[FilmMixer]

I love these stupid arguments on AVS. They actually have it ass backwards and are that point. They say under 20hz don't matter because they don't feel them in real life, WTF! The whole reason films with ULF's are better is because that is what happens in real life! Full Bandwidth response is just plain and simple, more accurate to real life. Why is this so hard to grasp? The problem I have is if the recording engineer records real sounds which will have ULF's just from natural effects and then it gets filtered throughout the process. I say why can't they just leave the mix alone and let who ever will playback the movie decide if they want to run a HPF or not. Movie theaters can run their own and people with ported subs can run theirs and let the people who can reproduce the full band do so. Why is that so hard to do?

 

A couple of points.. I don't want to start a debate, because it always becomes contentious.. but this is food for thought.

 

1. Very few microphones are good below 20Hz.. and most of what the pick up under 30Hz doesn't really sound all that great in my experience, and won't create fantastic ULF on it's own.

 

2. Almost all ULF you hear in films, if not all, was created after the fact electronically...

 

3. The film industry has standards in place that don't account for ULF.. again, let's not start a debate on what we should, or could, do. The fact is that we can guarantee a high degree of reliability, and repeatability (i.e. translation) with our curve, which doesn't extend much below 20Hz... while I don't want to speculate what other mixers do, I do not use a HPF on music (or effects when I mix them...) Some do, and want to use all of the band limited headroom as they mix... and some sound designers also feel they don't benefit from <18-20Hz, and don't work to get down any lower... so many different designers, so many different mixers.. there is no easy answer (I'm getting ready to start a film with the SD that did Bosso's favorite "Hunger Games.." I'll be sure to have a long discussion about his ideas and thoughts, which are sure to be educational for all.)

 

4. I'd be willing to bet, as a conservative estimate, there are <1% of people who can get the benefit of <18Hz in their rooms, both in terms of response and usability... it's a choice about what and who we are catering too.. frankly, I never filter and never worry about it with music, and most people I mix with don't filter the fx either... but if it isn't there from the sound designers/effect editors, we aren't going to make it appear with most of the tools at our disposal, and we're not monitoring it regardless. Even if there is debatable merit to the argument that <18Hz is audible/feel-able/etc... the general consensus from those I've worked with over the years is that it's not something they focus on... there is a lot more to a sound track that will have a bigger impact on telling the story through sound than ULF IMO (how well the dialog is mixed, how we use the sound space, dynamics, etc...) This isn't meant as any kind of slight towards the passion with which those who are passionate about ULF, or this wonderful board.. but the simple fact is that our monitoring systems and theaters are setup to a standard that isn't concerned with reproducing ULF... the expense and effort needed for us to implement such systems (and counteract the issues associated with such systems) doesn't really provide the ROI knowing how few consumers (much less any commercial venues) would be able to accurately reproduce it..

 

I'm not debating how cool ULF is... but I'm plenty happy of what I can do in a room with 110db down to 18-20Hz... at this point in time, as is true for most of the sound for film industry, we are moving into object based audio and many more channels of playback, which are really exciting IMO... and as far as theaters are concerned, were finally seeing upgrades to better reproduction systems (Meyer, Atmos systems with bass management, etc..) that are really fantastic... that has nothing to do with why designers, editors and mixers don't leave ULF in (if it even exists) are spend time and resources to create it (and again that doesn't require that they be able to monitor it because none of our editing room come close..) It's just a comment on where our focus is at this point in time. I tend to ramble.........

 

5. When you have a system that reproduces ULF, and are using the full frequency response of the system to calibrate your SPL using pink noise, and knowing what the standard is for most dub stages (talking about films here,) the variance from what most film makers and mixers intended is going to be a wildly varying experience for a lot of people... depending on how you calibrate your room, films that don't have any <20Hz content might sound downright anemic in a room setup for <20Hz because you've calibrated differently that what we do on a stage (i.e. the SPL of the sub channel for 20-120Hz will be lower than what we heard because our measurements weren't "hearing" <20Hz.. which explains to me a lot of times why there are wildly varying degrees opinions on LFE..

 

 

Subs aren't my specialty, and I'm not an overly technical person.. we have others that are focused on that, and I'm lucky to work with some of the best in the business in regards to engineering..... the above is based on my practical experience, and opinion.... I always have an open invitation to those on here to come by and see (and hear) what our dub stages are like.

[FilmMixer]

But if this is the result from using 30hz ported subs at the mixing facility, they need to upgrade their equipment. I'm sorry to be blunt, but does anyone find it normal that we, the amateurs, have better, more capable equipment, than the people making multi-million dollar movies?

 

I can understand the argument that these movies are mixed for commercial theaters. But don't BR/DVD home released get a different mix anyway? Even if that's not the case, a lot of movies have been released with the exact properties a lot of people here are looking for, so we know it can be done.

 

 

Tim... we've all had this conversation many times... the bolded part is the crux of the issue... we can debate over and over who we should cater for, but my first concern is theatrical distribution.

 

Most enthusiast on here have way better ULF than us.. above 18Hz you'd hear the difference in our rooms that would justify their costs.... you're talking about 15 cycles, and I'm talking about the other 20,000.

 

And when you say "we" I'm curious how many people, as a percentage of HT owners, have <18Hz capability in rooms designed to handle such frequencies properly you think are out there?

 

Bosso and I got into a discussion about this on AVS.... the cost and effort (not to mention alleviating bleed between rooms (even those that are fully floated) for what we (read: most colleagues I've talked with) see as a minimal increase in benefit over what we have now isn't worth it...

 

Again... let me be clear.. I'm not slighting the want/desire/passion for ULF... I'm just stating my personal opinion about what I need to focus on in helping to create a sound track, and knowing what a majority of theaters (as well as a great majority of HT's) are capable of, and what the business realities are vs. what returns we would see...

 

The rooms where Randy Thom mixes those films with the great ULF aren't any more capable than most other dub stages... he is a fantastic designer and sculpts the ULF to get the subs he does have in his room/dub stage to act a certain way..

 

Could others do it? Of course, and some do similar based on what you guys see on your graphs..

 

It's not easy, as everybody would do it with the consistency he does (and even with my vocal comments about the subject, I'd do it more if I had access to an easy tool to create it, even knowing I couldn't hear it but understanding that it would have an impact on the track...)

 

We do remaster for DVD/BR a lot more now a days (doing one tomorrow in fact...)

 

I will be using Genelec 1031's and a Genelec 18" sub... that's better than 99% of what people have in their homes... are we supposed to go more specialized than that for a fraction of the audience that would benefit from it? (and again see my point above about SPLing subs...)

 

But there is a simpler response to your position of "we know it can be done..."

 

I agree.. I don't ever HP filter the LFE, and most people I work with don't either... if it isn't there from the get go, however, I don't seek it out.

 

Just my personal .02...