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

[maxmercy]

Looks good to me, but bosso needs to chime in as it looks like you have a rolloff below 10Hz.

 

Great news on the data front. I will be able to grab data from peak/avg graphs, with the help of a program called DataThief, an autotrace program. It will allow me to gather data on a film's peak/avg content and find out relative sound power per octave. It is time intensive, and if someone knows of a better autotrace program than DataThief, please let me know. Bad part is for datathief to be able to track the trace well, it is not a pretty looking trace (black and white graph, mainly).

 

I have an out of town conference to attend and a 1 hour lecture to give next week, so I will be out of the loop for a while, no data until then. I will start the data gathering with recent and known great bass films in about a week or so.

 

JSS

[maxmercy]

Well folks, I got it to work. I can pull data from a SpecLab peak average graph, and I did a test-run on Immortals:

 

Immortals Bass Power

 

Overall Peak Power 535.7

0-10Hz Peak Power 28.4

10-20Hz Peak Power 60.4

20-40Hz Peak Power 99.8

40-80Hz Peak Power 183.8

80-160Hz Peak Power 163.3

 

Overall Average Power 31.8

0-10Hz Average Power 1.6

10-20Hz Average Power 3.6

20-40Hz Average Power 6.6

40-80Hz Avergae Power 10.6

80-160Hz Average Power 9.5

 

The power ratings are in PaHz. I essentially did a numerical integration to find the area under the curve for the peak and average graphs from 0-160Hz, and for each octave specified. Now we can have a truly apples/apples comparison for films.

 

One caveat: I do rolloff below 7Hz, -3dB down at 5Hz, and off the cliff under that. But for relative comparisons, this should be a very good tool.

 

As far as star ratings, Immortals gets 5 star extension, 5 star level, but 3 star for execution due to the clipping involved, which I believe is in the sattelite channels,average star level of 4.3. Overall buy/no-buy is a coin toss for me. Some great scenes, though, if you can ffwd through the BS parts.

 

 

JSS

[maxmercy]

Repeat post, sorry.

 

JSS

[Ricci]

Awesome stuff guys...I like what you have going there Max. Hopefully I will be able to contribute at some point but I don't know when that will be.

 

It was nice to meet you today Larry and Dominguez1 as well. I hope you enjoy the sub. Again if you have any questions or problems hit me up. Don't forget to take the handles off.

[Madaeel]

Hey guys I gotta say everything looks awesome. I'm checking this thread everyday. Finally a low bass content thread dedicated to............low bass. What a crazy idea!

 

What do you think about the final rating being buy, rental, or no buy??? You could redbox it for $2 if the bass isn't top tier stuff(if they have it that is). Dave's graph of Prometheus showed some decent output down to 20hz-30hz so while its definitely not worth a buy it could be worth a rental. Idk just a thought. Carry on.

[maxmercy]

Here is Immortals Peak/Avg, from the data in Excel, as the databass grows, we will be able to compare any film to another!

JSS

PS - The 18Hz spike is from every time the Epirus Bow is drawn and fired. Powerful effect.

EDIT - New no-rolloff PvA trace graph added. Here's the breakdown for Immortals:

Level - 5 Stars (115.95dB composite)
Extension - 5 Stars (1Hz)
Dynamics - 3 Stars (24.85dB)
EDIT - Execution - 4 Stars - This film would have been just tremendous if it didn't clip noticeably. The mix team supposedly did it on purpose, as it was supposed to be an 'over the top' mix, but they ran into the buss limiters on many scenes.

Overall Rating - 4.25 Stars

Recommendation - RENT. You may like this film. The battles between Gods and Titans are pretty good. I will not own it, but I have it on loan from a friend.

JSS

[maxmercy]

Hey guys I gotta say everything looks awesome. I'm checking this thread everyday. Finally a low bass content thread dedicated to............low bass. What a crazy idea!

 

What do you think about the final rating being buy, rental, or no buy??? You could redbox it for $2 if the bass isn't top tier stuff(if they have it that is). Dave's graph of Prometheus showed some decent output down to 20hz-30hz so while its definitely not worth a buy it could be worth a rental. Idk just a thought. Carry on.

 

I like the buy/rent/no-buy idea. Although to be truly honest, I will not purchase a film solely for ULF (although it does play a part). Afer all, the most watched film in my theater in the past 3 months is The Natural......but I am a basshead, no question. I make my recommendation on Immortals a 'rent' then....and if you like it, buy.

 

JSS

[Madaeel]

 

 

I like the buy/rent/no-buy idea. Although to be truly honest, I will not purchase a film solely for ULF (although it does play a part). Afer all, the most watched film in my theater in the past 3 months is The Natural......but I am a basshead, no question. I make my recommendation on Immortals a 'rent' then....and if you like it, buy.

 

JSS

 

The Natural?? I'll have to check that out.

 

I agree it takes more then great bass to make a movie a buy. Would you want to make that a buy for those who just care about the bass in Immortals, and a rent for the actual movie? I wouldn't buy Immortals either nor would I use it as a demo. I did like the movie, but the movie isn't something you would watch over and over. So maybe we could rate them on bass first and foremost, and then as a side note whether it's worth a buy, rental, no buy as far as the movie goes just to give someone an idea of what to expect. Nothing too detailed.

[maxmercy]

First post modified to show the buy/no-buy/rent recommendation. One more question about the ratings/measurements:

 

I could leave the power measurements in Pascal-Hertz, or put them in deciBel-Hz. PaHz are linear, and will show more change from one film to another, while dBHz will only show a 3dB increase when the numbers double. I think a linear based power measurement is better for this reason.

 

I will be out of town for the next few days, but will get back to measuring films later this week and building up a good data set.

 

JSS

[Bossobass Dave]

The Natural?? I'll have to check that out.

 

I agree it takes more then great bass to make a movie a buy. Would you want to make that a buy for those who just care about the bass in Immortals, and a rent for the actual movie? I wouldn't buy Immortals either nor would I use it as a demo. I did like the movie, but the movie isn't something you would watch over and over. So maybe we could rate them on bass first and foremost, and then as a side note whether it's worth a buy, rental, no buy as far as the movie goes just to give someone an idea of what to expect. Nothing too detailed.

 

I agree that we should keep it bass-centric. I have lots of movies (including The Natural) that I love to watch for various reasons, but they aren't ever gonna be graphed for this thread.

 

If we keep it bass-centric, then rent/buy/no buy is great. For example, I loved Prometheus, so I bought it even though the low end is anemic as heck. (Yeah, i saw others post at AVS that it had amazing/powerful bass, etc., but, if Max graphs it, it will become evident that that ain't so). That means there are indeed other factors that would go into that rating.

 

I vote we put you and Ethan in charge of this, after seeing the awesome job you did on your shootout thread.

[Bossobass Dave]

Well folks, I got it to work. I can pull data from a SpecLab peak average graph, and I did a test-run on Immortals:

 

Immortals Bass Power

 

Overall Peak Power 535.7

0-10Hz Peak Power 28.4

10-20Hz Peak Power 60.4

20-40Hz Peak Power 99.8

40-80Hz Peak Power 183.8

80-160Hz Peak Power 163.3

 

Overall Average Power 31.8

0-10Hz Average Power 1.6

10-20Hz Average Power 3.6

20-40Hz Average Power 6.6

40-80Hz Avergae Power 10.6

80-160Hz Average Power 9.5

 

The power ratings are in PaHz. I essentially did a numerical integration to find the area under the curve for the peak and average graphs from 0-160Hz, and for each octave specified. Now we can have a truly apples/apples comparison for films.

 

One caveat: I do rolloff below 7Hz, -3dB down at 5Hz, and off the cliff under that. But for relative comparisons, this should be a very good tool.

 

As far as star ratings, Immortals gets 5 star extension, 5 star level, but 3 star for execution due to the clipping involved, which I believe is in the sattelite channels,average star level of 4.3. Overall buy/no-buy is a coin toss for me. Some great scenes, though, if you can ffwd through the BS parts.

 

 

JSS

 

This is too cool. Just too cool.

 

As for the <7 Hz, I can always run a direct digits spectrograph and extrapolate that part of it. It's only 1/2 of the 0-10 Hz leg, and I would only have to do it if there is actually any content there to look at in the first place. I'm going to go direct-digits anyway to eliminate the "you use a mic" whiners. That means I have to redo my entire library because the ones I've graphed (like Star Trek, Hulk, WOTW, X-Men 1st Class, etc.), will have to be in our list.

 

Either way, this is shaping up to become one heck of a standard for reference.

[maxmercy]

This is too cool. Just too cool.

 

As for the <7 Hz, I can always run a direct digits spectrograph and extrapolate that part of it. It's only 1/2 of the 0-10 Hz leg, and I would only have to do it if there is actually any content there to look at in the first place. I'm going to go direct-digits anyway to eliminate the "you use a mic" whiners. That means I have to redo my entire library because the ones I've graphed (like Star Trek, Hulk, WOTW, X-Men 1st Class, etc.), will have to be in our list.

 

Either way, this is shaping up to become one heck of a standard for reference.

 

Better yet, I think I found a way over the weekend in which I should be able to correct for my rolloff, by using the 'Reference Curve' function on speclab. I would need to run a loopback with REW using the signal chain including the AVR, and then use the loopback file as a 'calfile' as long as the offsets are not large enough to add noise to the signal from the correction. I think I should be able to get flat to 3Hz or so without any noise above -70dBFS. Will get a chance to play with it on Saturday.

 

If it works, a tutorial will be put together on how to do this and be able to get nearly exact numbers, so others can contribute.

 

Do you think leaving it at PaHz is the right thing to do? I think so. I like linear, but can easily calculate both (the spreadsheet already does it).

 

 

Gotta go,

 

JSS

[Madaeel]

I agree that we should keep it bass-centric. I have lots of movies (including The Natural) that I love to watch for various reasons, but they aren't ever gonna be graphed for this thread.

 

If we keep it bass-centric, then rent/buy/no buy is great. For example, I loved Prometheus, so I bought it even though the low end is anemic as heck. (Yeah, i saw others post at AVS that it had amazing/powerful bass, etc., but, if Max graphs it, it will become evident that that ain't so). That means there are indeed other factors that would go into that rating.

 

I vote we put you and Ethan in charge of this, after seeing the awesome job you did on your shootout thread.

 

Works for me. If anyone has any recommendations for what they'd like to see for the movie ratings lmk.

 

This is too cool. Just too cool.

 

Either way, this is shaping up to become one heck of a standard for reference.

 

Agreed.

[laugsbach]

If you can post the expanded FR scaled graph here, that would be great...

 

Thanks Dave...I also e-mailed you. Here is the graph:

 

 

 

EDIT: Dave, there is an update available for SL ...should I DL it?

[laugsbach]

It was nice to meet you today Larry and Dominguez1 as well. I hope you enjoy the sub. Again if you have any questions or problems hit me up. Don't forget to take the handles off.

 

Hi Josh, same here...it was great to meet you and see your new space! Thanks for all of your help today with the speakon cable and I started to take off the handles and my wife said she liked them...I sure hope she doesn't hang any towels on it.

[Bossobass Dave]

Thanks Dave...I also e-mailed you. Here is the graph:

 

 

 

EDIT: Dave, there is an update available for SL ...should I DL it?

 

 

Got it, and bingo:

 

 

 

One thing: Change the sampling rate back to 48k Hz. 96k Hz with a decimation of 4 (my setting) gives a sampling rate of 24,000 Hz. What that does is spread the resolution across twice the number of frequencies, which is why the graph is pixelated, like my old settings were (which is when I graphed the scene in the above pic for comparison).

 

If you change back to 48k Hz, it should match mine perfectly.

 

The only other thing is that with a 0-480 Hz scale, there are no division lines to tell you what frequency the content is. It would be perfect if there were an option for the grid in the waterfall to be in 30 Hz increments, but there is no such option, so for now, you have it as good as it can be.

 

It's just a glitch thing (the frequency scale) that I don't know how to deal with yet.

 

If you could change the sample rate to 48000 and run that scene 1 more thime, I'll appreciate it.

[laugsbach]

Thanks Dave!

 

Here is the graph with 48K Hz...now the division lines are back.

 

I also took the 0-120Hz scale from the other screen capture and pasted it on top of the 0-480Hz...do you think this will work?

 

 

P/A chart is off but I could do the same for it or skip it for individual scenes.

[maxmercy]

OK folks,

 

I got my correction file to get accurate data down to 2Hz to work. Here's Immortals (see previous post):

 

I will get to work on a few others today. Battle:LA is next.

 

 

JSS

 

EDIT - Updated, level-matched graph on previous post.

[maxmercy]

http://www.avsforum.com/photopost/data/2386425/BLA1.jpg

http://www.avsforum.com/photopost/data/2386425/BLA2.jpg

http://www.avsforum.com/photopost/data/2386425/BLA3.jpg

http://www.avsforum.com/photopost/data/2386425/BLA4.jpg

http://www.avsforum.com/photopost/data/2386425/BLA5.jpghttp://www.avsforum.com/photopost/data/2386425/BLA6.jpg

Battle:LA.

EDIT - Rankings below as well as updated graph.

Level - 4 Stars (112.11dB composite)
Extension - 5 Stars (1Hz)
Dynamics - 4 Stars (25.91dB)
Execution - 5 Stars - In my opinion, one of the finest mixes utilizing ULF ever created. No easily detectable clipping, utilization of the entire LFE band, and most of all, it sounded right. The helo ride to the FOB is great stuff. The alien weapons have a touch of 20 and below Hz to give them extra weight.

Overall rating - 4.5 Stars

Recommendation - Buy. This film has some cheesy parts, and I may be biased being a former US Marine, but I really think this is demo material.

The Incredible Hulk is next.

JSS

[maxmercy]

The Incredible Hulk. Still the one track I hold others to.

EDIT - Updated graph and Ratings below:

Level - 5 Stars (112.99dB composite)
Extension - 5 Stars (2Hz)
Dynamics - 4 Stars (25.61dB)
Execution - 5 Stars - Still the track I hold all others to. It has everything.

Overall Rating: 4.75 Stars

JSS

[maxmercy]

Avengers, the biggest LF disappointment of all time, but also indirectly the reason this thread was started, so you have to give it that.

Level - 4 Stars (110.53dB composite)
Extension - 2 Stars (21Hz)
Dynamics - 4 Stars (26.13dB)
Execution - 3 Stars - 1 Star deducted for lack of extension, 1 star deducted for lack of continuity with previous Marvel films, and a general 'mail-in' of the soundtrack. It is my personal theory that the highpass filter was put into effect after several subwoofer drivers were blown during the mixing of this film. It is too bad this got such filtering, as it is such a great film. You can even see sweeps that should have dug down to the teens just disappear in the filter's grasp. Oh well.

Overall Rating - 3.25 Stars. What a shame.

Overall Recommendation - Reluctantly, I still say BUY. It is that good a film, putting together all of the characters in a great way, with comic-book one-liners throughout.

 

 

JSS

[maxmercy]

Here's Tron:Legacy.

Level - 5 Stars (113.03dB composite)
Extension - 5-Stars (1Hz)
Dynamics - 4 Stars (25.26dB)
Execution - 3 Stars - Really good track, but look closely at the extension. Save for a few scenes, the average graph tells most of the tale. It's F10 is only 22Hz. The problem with this track is the clipping in the LCR and Surround channels (the LFE channel is suprisingly unaffected). An article reported that the director Joseph Kosinski went back and 'modified' the soundtrack for the BluRay release. Too bad. At first, I thought the clipping almost intentional, given Daft Punk's music style, but it is not always the case. 3 Stars for the clipping.

Overall Rating: 4.25 Stars

Recommendation - A reluctant Buy. The visuals in this film are so tremendous, that they can even overpower the botched sound at times.

JSS

 

[Ricci]

I asked Kyle but he hasn't gotten back to me on this. I am stuck with the same problem myself. I will contact him again.

[TimVG]

Awesome thread, guys!

[Madaeel]

Avengers, the biggest LF disappointment of all time, but also indirectly the reason this thread was started, so you have to give it that.

 

Tron:Legacy is next

 

JSS

 

You know what's even more disappointing?? After I finished building my theater I was going to open with that pos. I haven't even seen it yet so it was going to a great opener and now...........it's a rental. You're right though at least something came from it.

 

Thanks for the graphs Max.