Hi all - I've some experience in the area, having mixed a number of
films for theatrical release as well as home theater, in discrete 5.1
and dolby surround. Loudness is a slipperier subject than you might
imagine, as it quickly begins to incorporate room acoustics, speaker
design and psychoacoustics.
The psychoacoustics of small rooms dictate using a lower calibrated
monitoring level. In my room, on nearfield speakers, I mix at 79dB
SPL, using band-limited Dolby pink noise. I find this translates
reasonably well to a large room at 85dB.
For a very deep dive into the realm of loudness and speaker
calibration, this discussion thread on the DUC (Pro Tools forum) is
great:
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=87830
My advice would be: if you are mixing for theatrical film release,
mix as best you can in a small room and then hire a proper film mixing
room to do your printmaster and adjustment session.
If you're mixing for home theater, mix to a calibrated level for your
room, probably lower than 85.
If you're mixing for television, read the above thread on loudness
best practices and tools.
i.e. consider the intended playback environment, and have fun!
-jeremiah
On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 10:54 AM, Hector Centeno <> wrote:
> I came across the same questions not long ago that I had to mix a 5.1 sound
> design for a film. I first calibrated my system using the -20dBFS = 85dB
> SPL standard that Mike mentions and my first mix was too quiet. It seems
> that such standard wokrs for a large mixing studio and not for a smaller
> project studio like mine. In a small studio, the 85dB feel too loud so you
> end up mixing too low. At the end I got some reference files (5.1 mix from
> another movie) and perceptually calibrated my system so it sounded
> comfortable. I measured that and got something like 74dB. This worked much
> better in the theatre. Later, reading some discussions on the topic at the
> Gearslutz forums, I found that indeed 72 to 75 dB works better than 85 for
> small studios.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Hector
>
> On Wednesday, November 16, 2011, Mike Rooke <> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I recently faced this problem exporting a title sequence for playback in
> a cinema and basically winged it...
>>
>>
> http://www.tonmeister.ca/main/textbook/intro_to_sound_recordingch11.html#x42-77700010.2
>>
>> Goes into detail with regard to the alignment level dbFS and actual SPL.
>>
>> I used -20dBFS = 85dB SPL C weighted which didnt quite work as expected,
> ended up
>> adding around 10dB gain to all tracks.
>>
>> Maybe someone with more experience will chime in.
>>
>> -Mike.
>>
>> --- In "rterry_uk" <>
> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello to all
>>>
>>> My new video editing software is able to record in 5.1 sound format (DD)
> and I was wondering if there is any 'best guide' as to sound levels for the
> finished production.
>>>
>>> As an example, if I record say the narration track at about 0dB (5 PPM)
> should the front L&R be the same or lower say -4dB (4 PPM) and what of the
> surround levels -4dB (4 PPM) again? (all in UK scale)
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance
>>>
>>> Ron
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> "While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
> sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause.
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
--
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jeremiah moore | SOUND |
http://www.jeremiahmoore.com/
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