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The Bass EQ for Movies Thread


Kvalsvoll

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The Force Awakens BEQ:

post-20-0-34394700-1460076461.png

 

BEQ Correction (implement prior to AVR, with HTPC software or nanoAVR):

 

LCRS:

 

1. Low shelf - 15Hz, Slope 1 (Q of 0.707), Gain +6dB

2. Low Shelf - 15Hz, Slope 1 (Q of 0.707), Gain +3dB

3. Parametric EQ - 85Hz, Q 1.12 (Bandwidth 1.25 Octaves), Gain +4dB

4. Overall Gain -7dB

 

LFE:

 

1. Low Shelf - 15Hz, Slope 1, (Q of 0.707), Gain +6dB

2. Low Shelf - 15Hz, Slope 1, (Q of 0.707), Gain +6dB

3. Low Shelf - 15Hz, Slope 1, (Q of 0.707), Gain +3dB

4. Parametric EQ - 70Hz, Q 1.12 (Bandwidth 1.25 Octaves), Gain +4dB

5. Overall Gain -7dB.

 

What I did was give the track more room-shuddering effects as well as more midbass slam while minimizing the boost to the 30-40Hz bandwidth which was over-utillized, IMO.  I like the result, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

These changes will mean that Reference Level playback will occur at +7dBMV.  The track does not reach over 126.5dB peak level at this level of playback, and max RMS level is 119dB (over 1/8th sec), so if your system can handle Reference Level with very demanding material, it can handle this track at +7dBMV, provided your AVR does not clip the signal.

 

The track gains over a dB in Dynamics, Extension and Level become 5-Star Level if played back at +7dB from your typical listening level.  DO NOT add a house curve to this unless you know your system can handle it.  Adding a steep house curve will bloat the midbass and the score will sound unnatural.  This BEQ assumes a gentle (if any) house curve, maximum of -6 to -10dB downslope from 20Hz to 20kHz, with no aggressive slope-up in the midbass region.

 

JSS

 

Tonight, we played this on my new subs pretty much at reference level.  :o  :blink::D

 

Well, technically I used "-4", but I'm calibrated to about 86 dBZ from 100 Hz on down and ran a +3.0 dB shelf from 80 Hz down.  I'm calibrated flat to 5 Hz with a fairly steep drop below there (at least according to my calibrated-to 5 Hz mic).

 

I forgot the stats on this BEQ and didn't realize I was going to be asking my system for (almost) 126.5dB peaks.  I did notice the peak indicators for the sub channels bouncing into the upper half of the display, *a lot*.  The half-way mark is about -9 dB digitally, and IIRC about -4 dB from where the amp clip lights come on with no load.  I didn't notice them come on during the movie and never heard any unpleasant sound.

 

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation.  Some of the bass was downright violent, particularly the scenes with Kylo Ren and Rei together.  In the forest scene, there is a ULF burst that was so strong, it caused two of my rack cabinets to rap together.  I also noticed a couple passages of strong sustained bass in the low teens.  IIRC one is after the big burst in the forest, and the other is the Ren/Rei interrogation scene.  Oh yeah, pretty much everything involving the Millennium Falcon was solid too.

 

Edit: Now that I have my subs working better and can do BEQ, I'll have to check out a bunch of others on this list.

 

Edit2:  Oh yeah.  I passed on the mid-bass boost PEQs when I did this one.  Despite that, I noticed a fair amount of slam.  I still have room to improve my own mid-bass presentation, so I expect it will be better when I get there.

Edited by SME
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Guardians of the Galaxy:

 

...

 

A whole new experience.  Great movie, too.

 

This is one of my wife's favorite movies, so when she learned there was a BEQ for it, we just *had* to watch it again.  So we did.  Playback level set the bass at about -1 dB vs. 85 dBC reference, flat to 5 Hz.

 

These words are spot on.  It was a whole new experience.  The ULF here was nowhere near as heavy handed as in Star Wars: TFA, but I thought the BEQ revealed a very interesting and intricate overall sound design.  I also think I noticed an effect or two in the high single digits, when it made my pants move.  :)  It's still very subtle though.  Anything above 10 Hz or so with sufficient level is not subtle in here at all.

 

It's a shame the mixers don't get to hear this.  I think this BEQ made a net improvement to the sound in about 95% of the places where it mattered.  This surprises me a bit, thinking about it.  There's only a couple places where I as a mixer would have said, hmm, maybe that was heavier on the ULF than was called for.  :)  One of those was the score, which sounded slightly unnatural, even though I kind of enjoyed it that way.  Just a tiny bit less ULF on the score would likely have settled it nicely, if only they were able to hear it.

 

Anyway, this is starting to get real fun, and I'm really beginning to appreciate all the extra headroom I have above 15-20 Hz.   Before I finished the subs, I had no idea if I'd be able to play these BEQed films cleanly at reference, but so far the system seems to be doing just fine.  I don't think I could go any hotter though.  I can live with that.

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GotG was one I was wary about because of the steep correction, but the correction worked well.  If you want to be surprised, go back and watch the film without BEQ.....

 

JSS

 

I actually chickened out and didn't apply the full boost to the surrounds because 60 dB seems an insane amount of gain for any signal coming off of analog inputs as is the case.  All things considered though, I had zero issues with noise using the boosts I did.

 

On another note, I recall you saying you'd done a BEQ for "Big Hero 6".  Is there anything I can do to help with getting that released?  :)

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I'll put it up later this week if I have time.  BH6 improved significantly, but not as much as other BEQ films.

 

JSS

 

Thanks!  Any improvement is welcome.  IMO, the soundtrack was excellent to begin with except for the lack of extension.

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

 

[...]

 

Let me know what you guys think.  The high shelf is OK on LFE as the very steep DTS filter is in place on the original LFE track.

 

Wow!  This is first rate.  Thank you!

 

I played it tonight with the bass at around theatrical reference level (including house curve).  It sounded fantastic and complemented the on-screen action *very well*.  As presented, this is excellent demo material that took my sub system all the way to its limits.

 

This is only my second time seeing the movie, and the first time "doesn't count" because it was in a theater with the volume turned way down.  As such, I have no idea what the soundtrack was like without the BEQ, but based on the PvA, I figured I wouldn't waste my time.  I don't regret that in the slightest.

 

The only flaw I really noticed was a bit of unrealistic rumble in the bass drum in the score.  Although, for the most part it just made the bass drum sound even more powerful and contributed more tension.  Again, if only someone was listening they could have mellowed that out just a bit and left the rest of the track alone.

 

I think I liked the sound design in this a lot more than SW:TFA, but it's also possible that my impression is influenced by the fact that my system is better optimized now.  Still, I was almost surprised by the fact that the weight of the effects seemed to be relatively proportionate the what was happening on screen, at least within the same scene.  This movie had a lot of opportunities for heavy duty effects, and it used them.

 

But now I really have to wonder.  How did the movie end up with such great bass underneath that 30 Hz peak they shoved it through?  I can only guess that the unmodified track sounds mostly like one-note "whoom" and "boom".  The 30 Hz part of the content will overwhelm and mask everything else.  With the tonal balance corrected, using BEQ, to allow the full-bandwidth of bass to be perceived, the sound is full of detail and the transients are much tighter and more *physical* feeling.  Some day I'll have to figure out how to figure out how to get a pro mixer to hear my system.  :)

 

I'd have a hard time identifying which effects I liked best.  The scene where they depart Jedha (trying to avoid spoiler here) was absolutely epic.  I don't have it on-hand to compare with, but I'd bet that scene would wipe the floor with the OHF Washington Monument scene for extended bass brutality.  It went on longer *and* dug lower and was wider band in general.

 

Several transient effects in the movie were also very impressive.  Lots of the explosions delivered some startling force.  One transient that stood out to me is when Darth Vader's cruiser comes out of warp.  That one might have clipped my amps, based on what I saw on my Motu, but I wasn't looking at the amps when it happened.  It *sounded* clean.  I love how the cruiser just pops onto the screen, and the sound fits it perfectly.  Was that the 126 dB peak, perhaps?  Or maybe that just one came with a lot of 1-3 Hz that mostly got filtered by the amp.  I just know that the pulse felt pretty awesome.

 

Edit: Just to be clear.  My BEQ system doesn't have any headroom limitation, so I don't need to play with the gains and master volume.  When I say I played it at reference level, I mean I played it exactly as it appears in the PvA, and with the peak up to 126 dB.  :D

Edited by SME
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BEQ of Vader's ship coming out of hyperspace about 124-125dB effect, not the loudest in the film, but very close:

 

That's fascinating.  A lot of that effect goes under 5 Hz.

 

My measurement mic calibration only goes to 5 Hz, so I don't know what to believe when I see my response dropping off rapidly below there.  My signal chain is probably above average for roll-off.  I have a Denon AVR going through the Motu 16A to the SP2-12k.  I do have generous DSP boost below 5 Hz.  It could be that I'm getting a lot more actual output down there than my mic is reporting.

 

I'm also a bit skeptical that I can reproduce anything below 10 Hz or so loud enough to perceive, but that effect definitely seemed to carry a lot of weight.  It wasn't really loud at all.  It was just kind of a weird "blip" in the air that grabbed my attention nevertheless.

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If you want to convince yourself that ULF matters, look at the Transformers BEQ solution and playback the scene where Megatron shoots Jazz.

 

post-20-0-07533900-1417440521.jpg

 

Broad transient with <5Hz emphasis.  It is palpable, and there for a reason.  It's the first time Megatron fires his cannon.  Even without BEQ, this effect is different than the rest.  With BEQ, it is almost over-emphasized, but a fun effect.

 

JSS

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If you want to convince yourself that ULF matters, look at the Transformers BEQ solution and playback the scene where Megatron shoots Jazz.

 

Broad transient with <5Hz emphasis.  It is palpable, and there for a reason.  It's the first time Megatron fires his cannon.  Even without BEQ, this effect is different than the rest.  With BEQ, it is almost over-emphasized, but a fun effect.

 

I don't have that one, and I'm definitely not a fan of the movies.  I've already rented it once.  Oh, and I'm pretty sure that peak would clip on the Motu output.  I'm not exactly sure what it would do if it go through to the amp because the amp does roll-off quite a bit at 1 Hz.

 

After seeing the Motu peak indicators hop almost to the very top after Darth Vader's cruiser popped into existance, I might want to adjust my gains to allow a little more headroom for that kind of thing.  I'd much rather let the amp clip, since it has a soft limiter vs. digital clipping.  I can also implement a soft limiter in my DSP, but that's a mini project for another day.

 

Maybe I'll have to experiment with the Darth Vader effect, with vs. without high pass at 10 Hz to figure out if I'm really feeling the low single digits in here.  Otherwise, I should probably just filter it out to get back some headroom.

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Big Hero 6 BEQ Solution:

Pre-Post:

post-20-0-40218600-1497475041.png

LFE Correction:

Gain: -7dB

Low Shelf 16Hz, Slope of 1, +6dB (6 filters for a total boost of 36dB)

 

LCRS Correction:

Gain: -7dB

Low Shelf 22Hz, Slope 1.5, +4.75dB (2 filters for total boost of 9.5dB)

Low Shelf 23Hz, Slope 1.5, +4.75dB (2 filters for total boost of 9.5dB)

Low Shelf 24Hz, Slope 1.5, +4.75dB (2 filters for total boost of 9.5dB)

Low Shelf 44Hz, Slope 0.5, +0.75dB

Low Shelf 46Hz, Slope 0.5, +0.75dB

Low Shelf 48Hz, Slope 0.5, +0.75dB

 

The film gains significant weight to large effects, and while improved significantly, is not a whole new experience, but what I believe to be an enhanced way to see the film.

 

JSS

post-20-0-40218600-1497475041_thumb.png

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  • 3 weeks later...

Star Trek: Beyond  BEQ

 

This film improves significantly.

 

Yes it does indeed.  Thank you again for this excellent contribution.  This was a completely new experience with BEQ.  I would say that a couple of scenes are definitely demo-worthy.  With the filters removed, the film was a nice showcase of high impact, wide-band, impulsive bass.  One scene I could describe as an "extended physical bombardment", given the rapid fire nature of the effects and the fact that they were *very tactile* possessing both tightness/punchiness and ULF weight.

 

On the downside, the mix doesn't seem to be as well balanced as the mixes for SW:TFA, SW:RO, or GOTG.  I played it at around "-5", but it sounded a bit loud at times.  I'm thinking they didn't do much if any re-EQ of the theatrical track, and it suffers from the characteristic upper-frequency edge coupled with over-fullness below 300 Hz or so.  I found a fair amount of the dialog to be unintelligible due to muddiness.  I may try to do my own full-range re-EQ before I watch it again to see if I can clean up the dialog, but I don't know if it will lead to an improvement.

 

Oh yeah.  My subs seemed to really coast through this one, given the relatively low level of content under 15 Hz.

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Then try doing BEQ and report back what you think about the corrections.  It looks like the 'Pre-Amp' stage you would put in what I do for the 'Gain' portion of BEQ, and then fill in the filters for each channel.

 

Rogue One BEQ is pretty awesome.

 

JSS

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Then try doing BEQ and report back what you think about the corrections.  It looks like the 'Pre-Amp' stage you would put in what I do for the 'Gain' portion of BEQ, and then fill in the filters for each channel.

 

Rogue One BEQ is pretty awesome.

 

JSS

 

Yeah.  I think "Rogue One" BEQ might be my number one demo flick right now.

 

I will have to try that one tomorrow for sure and i will report back.

 

Take care with the master volume until you get a sense of what these tracks can do, especially with an untested EQ system that might do unexpected things.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

 

Pre:

 

post-20-0-06345400-1383793080.jpg

 

Post:

 

post-20-0-71733500-1413773855.jpg

 

 

 

This track is very good for BassEQ, as it is unclipped, and it is tremendous.  I would venture to say that TF2 BEQ is just as good as any Bass experience out there, if you can stomach the movie.  To turn TF2 into a WotW+ caliber experience, with two >128dB peaks at reference (try to guess where!), use the following DSP settings:

 

LFE Channel:

 

1. Output Gain -7dB

2. Low Shef, Freq 20Hz, Gain +4dB, Q 0.707  (3 filters stacked for a 12dB correction)

 

LCR:

 

1. Output Gain -7dB

2. Low Shelf, Freq 20Hz, Gain +6dB, Q 0.611 (3 filters stacked for an 18dB correction)

 

Surrounds:

 

1. Output Gain -7dB

2. Low Shelf Freq 20Hz Gain +6dB, Q 0.707 (3 filters stacked for an 18dB correction)

3. Low Shelf Freq 20Hz Gain +3dB, Q 0.707 

 

 

You will have to turn up your master volume up by +7dB to have dialogue at the same level as the original.

 

Attached is an .xml file you can load directly into a minidsp nanoavr.

 

JSS

 

Well, I did it.  I stomached it.  Once.  It was slightly better than terrible.

 

The audio track was very clean, but I opted to keep the playback level at "-6" to be safe and also because of how long the loudness goes on.  I still had some minor refractory effects for several minutes afterwards.  That put my bass playback level at about "-3" vs. reference or so (for the lowest frequencies).

 

My disdain for the movie and for Michael Bay no doubt biases my opinions of the presentation, but I was a bit disappointed.  I recall TF1 being a total slam fest from start to finish, but the bass seemed weak and inconsistent for most of the first half of this one.  Sure, there were some loud sweeps and a variety of odd moments for ULF.  But then there were entire fight sequences that seemed to have almost no low end.  The guns and explosions seemed kinda weak too.

 

But once we got to the last 1/3rd or so of the movie, the bass suddenly got a whole lot better.  Yeah, now we're talking!  It's not just that there were more big effects.  Even the lesser effects seemed to carry more slam *and* extension.  And yeah, there were some pretty big impressive effects.  It's just a shame that I was so fatigued from the rest of the movie up to that point, or I might have enjoyed it even more.  I think that if they'd maybe crammed all but the last 45 minutes of the movie into a 15 minute rapid narrative and left the rest of the movie alone, it actually might have been pretty good.

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Favorite effects in TF2:

 

. Sideswipe introduction

. Bumblebee's cannon (several times in the film)

. Megatron powering up/resurrecting

. Megatron greets Starscream aboard the derelict spacecraft

. Shard powers up Jetfire

. The 'pillars' tumble down

. M1 Tank main gun fires under the slow-motion Medevac Huey

 

At the cinema, still the most overall slam I have ever experienced in a film (as well as the second-highest overall loudness in a cinema).  Highlights were the Sideswipe intro, the rail gun, Megatron's coup de grace shot through Optimus.

 

The film comes in two versions: The standard and Big Screen editions.  The Big Screen Edition is the IMAX mix, and uses Dialnorm.  The standard edition does not and is +4dB comparatively.  They graph similarly, but are slightly different mixes.

 

JSS

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