They want it damn loud. It gets EQed until THEY like it and it gets played as loud as THEY want it. And let me tell you, on some of these premiers, we have had very mad people come into the booth to tell us to TURN IT DOWN, yet the director still wanted it even louder! I swear the people in Hollywood are deaf! One big show, I couldn't stand being in the theatre for more than 15 minutes...it really hurt my ears...not only was it loud but way too shrill.

The guy mixing these films just don't get it....they need to first start with the dialogue and get that level right and natural then make EVERYTHING else conform to it...music should set a mood, NEVER compete with dialogue. Short "stings" with loud effects can add a great impact that virtually no one will mind. Continous loud effect make all of them seem just too damn loud and less important.

It isn't just the tuning of the system, films are really being mixed too loud, in general. Every now and again, I run a film where 7 really is a great level...things seem very well balanced.

Steve

quote:

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Stephen J. Guttag wrote:

The guy mixing these films just don't get it...

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I agree completely with Steve's post. I have a theory that the sound mixers begin to lose their hearing after being at the mixing board day after day after day. Eventually they crank it up so it seems slightly loud to them and horribly loud to normal people.

I DO stand to be corrected on this but the word was, a few years ago, that Steven Spielberg was not entirely happy with excessive level during a performance of Saving Private Ryan in the UK.

Could have been one of those ghastly rummors that perpetuate among the "old women" of the industry.

Cheers,

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At the end, a polite charity applause was given from this full house of industry people. The first question of the Q&A: "Was it that loud on the mixdown stage?"

To which said sound designer proudly answered, "Oh no. On the mixdown stage it was a lot louder!" [emphasis his] He went on to say that Schumacher likes his films loud and that they were probably averaging 105 dB during the mix sessions. His motto as told to us that night: "If it says 'Schumacher' anywhere in the credits, you don't want to sit in the front row."

Joe's theory is correct. Constant exposure to high SPL causes one's hearing to accomodate to it. If one mixes to a level by ear, say just to the point where one can feel an "edge" to the mix, after a while one needs to raise that level in order to feel the same "edge." Take it from this former Las Vegas showroom soundman, it does indeed become a vicious circle of ever increasing SPL, mostly because producers and performers don't want to hear excuses as to why the room doesn't sound satisfying anymore. Audience complaints and OSHA violations mean nothing to them. I'm sure that veteran soundstage mixers are experiencing the same cause and effect.

BTW here's the OSHA SPL exposure limits chart (most Las Vegas showrooms and lounges use the 2-hour limit, fine for the audience, hell for the crew): http://home.i1.net/~praetor/sound/osha.html

If it says 'Schumacher' anywhere in the credits, you don't want to see the movie.

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I have worked concerts where the house levels at the mix positions were excruciating and ceiling tiles started falling down! Its one thing to "like it loud", its quite another to use your damaged hearing to judge how loud other people like it.

And none of these people are deaf, thank you very much! Take it from a guy who mixed live variety television shows for fifteen years. Day after day during live musical numbers I would crank up my twin JBL 4333's to levels that would pin any normal human being to the back wall of the control room, and here I am 51 years old and my hearing is no worse than the average for any other person of my age. It is now well known that hearing damage arises from the stress of being subjected to unwelcome excessive and unpleasant volume levels, not from high SPL's on their own. This is why so many aging rock musicians, who by the old reckoning should be stone deaf, have hearing as good as anyone else their age.

Any half-way-decent sound mixer knows what is loud and what is not. Of course there are exceptions as I noted earlier in this thread. However If the sound mixers want to mix loud (and they often do for the same reason a musician likes to hear himself loud when he plays) then they can turn up the monitor fader. However when the soundmix is played back and checked, the monitor is normally turned back down to reference level which is what the audience is supposed to hear, and this is usually when the director hears it and says he wants it louder. Blame the directors who want their movie to have IMPACT!! not the sound engineers. And blame the idiot advertising executives who think that the audience is not being "moved" if the volume of their trailers is not ear-shatteringly loud.

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Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

There are many little old ladies who never, ever listened to anything "loud" who also have severe hearing loss. Age itself causes hearing loss and depending on hereditory, environmental and other factors it may be mild, medium or severe. There have been numerous medical studies into hearing loss that indicate that loud sound alone is not the primary cause of hearing loss, that it is also the degree of "unpleasantness" of the loud sound to the listener that seems to have the most damaging effect. Now in this context, "unpleasantness" does not mean how much you like or don't like the music, it is how much it causes stress to your ears, particularly when it reaches the level of mild pain. The worst effected people have generally been observed to be those that have worked in highly "unpleasant", stressfully noisy environments, such as a drop forge, where the noise is painfully loud and until recent times, unavoidable.

Of course some "ageing rock musicians" will be deaf, just as some ageing little old ladies will be deaf, but many "ageing rock musicians" also have perfectly normal hearing for their age. The point is that sound, too loud, too long, also seems to need "too unpleasant" or "too stressful to the hearing system" to cause significant hearing loss above the normal average.

Of course even this is an over simplification. Which brings us back to Brad's statement that "bad eq" makes a movie soundtrack sound louder. Sound which is sharp or "peaky" in the midrange, definitely sounds far less "pleasant" than sound of equal SPL but which is flat. Most sound mixers work in well equalised studio environments that are as flat as possible. So "turning up the wick" usually does not make the sound any less pleasant (up to some reasonable limit). I have not read the book that you refer to but I suspect that it would make reference to the importance of avoiding sharp, ear-piecing sound levels.

I found that my pearl and dean adds and trailers run at about 7 and a half.

Films run at around 7 or 7 and a half max.

A few exception Croutching Tiger i think i had to run low at about 6 and a half.

Moulin Rouge 8