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


maxmercy

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Die Hard:

 

Level - 2 Stars (106.3dB)

Extension - 1 Star (25Hz)

Dynamics - 5 Stars (30dB)

Execution - By today's standards, 3 Stars.  By 1988 standards, at least 4.  I will go with 4.  I remember very snappy dynamics when I saw this in THX, which translates well in the home.  It is a quiet mix, but gets loud when it has to, making loud things seem louder (think Drive) 

 

Overall - 3 Stars

 

Recommendation - Rent or Buy, I am on the fence.  While I love this film, it doesn't have the 'replay-ability' I look for in purchases.

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Knowing:

 

Level - 5 Stars (113.9dB)

Extension - 2 Stars (23Hz)

Dynamics - 5 Stars (29.6dB)

Execution - 4 Stars by Poll, with high dynamics noted.  Note the HUGE peak at ~28Hz, at 118dB intensity.  It dominates this graph like the peaks in FOTP and in CitW.

 

Overall - 4 Stars

 

Recommendation - Rent by Poll

 

 

JSS

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Just started on the speclab tutorial and still waiting for the audio files to download.  I am at 21% right now so I can't get started for a while. 

 

Suggestion, I watched Priest yesterday and I love the soundtrack.  Maybe you should add it to the que.  I was watching the movie and not really watching for ULF so I might throw it in again, it is only 89 minutes. 

 

It says I have 56 minutes left to download.

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Thanks for the Day After Tomorrow measurements. Haven't seen it so long, but that big spike of energy down at 5-6hz does appear interesting.

 

Examining IMDB, I see Harry Cohen, the Sound Designer, worked on The Patriot, Kill Bill, Star Trek, Nine, Abe Lincoln-Hunter, and the recent Django. It would appear Tarantino likes his work. In addition to the well documented deep effects of Star Trek and Nine, I do recall the exquisite artillery fire in Patriot. One of my fave effects ... distant, yet powerful explosions, bathed in reverberant goodness that illuminates the surroundings. Properly executed, it places the listener right there 

 

 

 

Some more info on your research.

 

I worked with Harry for 8 years....  he was the sound designer on many films where I served as supervising sound editor.

 

The connection with Tarantino and some of the other films comes from Wylie Stateman, who is the supervising sound editor (and the Nine you are referring to is the Rob Marshall film not "9" for clarification..)  He and Harry, as you noted, have been part of an amazing team for a long while now.  The Patriot was one of the first films Harry worked on after joining Soundelux.

 

Anne Scibelli was the main designer on Trek (another person Harry and I worked with for many years...)  She recently completed Iron Man 3 with supervisor Mark Stoeckinger (who also did Star Trek...)

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FM,

 

Good to see you still stop by! I bet IM3 and Star Trek will have great soundtracks. The first Star Trek's warp scenes were tremendous.

 

You were looking into what happened to the low end on The Hobbit, IIRC. Were you able to find anything out?

 

 

I've been busy doing other things to measure films lately. I'll get back to it soon.

 

 

JSS

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MK,

 

The Audio test DVD should be burned to DVD, and played by your BD player for calibrations. There should be no other physical disc necessary. I am still working on my version of the Audio Test Disc for 7.1......

 

Your sub out (if line level RCA), should plug right into your soundcard with an RCA cable and adapter. If XLR, you will need to attenuate it with something like a Samson S-Convert to not damage your soundcard.

 

For SpecLab scene capture measurements, you should not need anything else.

 

JSS

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I will play with the settings tonight!  The first graph I just forgot to load the settings I downloaded before which included the setup and low end fix.  To recalibrate I need to run Soho's disc again and set to -10 with the .5dB LFE? Once I get this correct I will run any scene for you. 

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I wanted to mention a few things:

 

First, MKT... Bravo! I can't believe how many people ask for screen caps of their favorite scene, but just don't want to download and graph themselves. Virtually no one.

 

Second, about my settings; I discovered that using the decimation setting for both FFT (in FFT Settings Tab) and sampling rate (in Audio I/O Tab) allowed me to increase the resolution in the subwoofer range by magnitudes.

 

Here's a SC of the bridge collapse scene in WOTW using my old settings and the new higher rez setting. I also took the scene MKT showed above from HULK and zoomed in on one of the "footsteps" to show the rez difference:

 

 

042148fc5e1bedc7fe241f6a432e568f.jpg
 
Notice in the zoomed footstep how many bars there are from left to right. The higher rez setting has more than double. Also notice, just as a small nuance, that on the low end, the darkest stripe, with higher rez, you notice that the stripe ramps up in frequency over time. Looking at the lower rez version, the ramping is gone and it's much more pixelated. 
 
This is probably only important to me, as I'm way past just looking for overall intensity and how low in frequency the blobs of color are. When you compare digital vs mic'd, as I've done for years, you look deeper and deeper into the comparisons, looking for distortions and generally how differently designed effects look on paper, showing why they sound different, etc.
 
The only way to do that is by increasing the resolution.
 
To be honest, I haven't looked at the settings upload file in my download for a year, so I may have tweaked them since. If I did, it probably is the scroll speed. If you get my settings file loaded into SL and post a graph, I'll be able to tell and help from there.
 
I've been busy at work, doing subwoofer hardware purchasing and I decided to try the Oppo BDP-105 flagship as preamp and dump my old Oppo player=>Onk receiver-as-pre/pro.
 
The main thought was to improve the signal chain integrity, so I did before/after measurements of the subs, close mic and at the LP:
 
e974560c8c51c3eb8e9e86574b87397e.jpg
 
I gained around 3-5dB @ 3 Hz, which is pretty huge.
 
The 2nd reason for the change was sound quality across the entire systems bandwidth. I've always dislike the thought of using a receiver as a preamp, and I truly dislike the SQ of the Onk, which I rushed into buying and hooking up because I wanted the Hi-Rez audio NOW.
 
The difference in the sound field coherence, steering and clean factor were so great that I about dumped on the floor.
 
I measured first, close mic and LP, then I listened to 3 of the highest quality recordings I have (and know well), before and after. When I popped in the 1st disc with the new Oppo, really... just unbelievable the difference. I'm not into audiophile subjective prose, just wanna say the difference was not nuance, it was stunning.
 
Anyway, see y'all in Chicago!
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