There were complaints of being too loud on the first day of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, so I wound down L & R about 2db. Seemed much better to me and there were no further complaints.

Some will remember the sound problems with GIANT (1954), cue sheets were sent out with every copy in the UK.

Everything else is around 6 and if you turn it down much more than that FOR ONE PERSON, you will ruin it for the rest of your audiences for the rest of the day because you will be down popping the corn and sweeping the theatre rather than coming upstairs to check on the levels again.

Of course I also tell them that this is true on a properly mixed feature and that some independents and non-us features vary widely.

Laurence Hammett
Field Service Technician
Southern California

To further prove my point, you multiplex guys, don't you for the most part find a fader setting for each auditorium (regardless of what it actually is) and find that *most* movies play well at it? I have.

Funny Rory, I've had some people over to my screening room lately and ran action-intensive "loud" movies at 7.5, noticeably over "reference level" and after the show when questioned was told "volume was perfect" or "could've even been turned up just a touch more". Ya gotta trust your ears when you tune those things. If a sound tech cannot obtain fantastic sound without an R2, then that tech isn't very good. That really should be a requirement from Lucasfilm before certifying the tech. IMHO the R2 just makes things easier for a good tech to get great sound. It's just a tool.

Case in point I've walked into a THX auditorium fairly recently that was just tuned by a THX tech and had to lower the fader to 3.25 so my ears wouldn't bleed. Just being in there at "5" for a couple of minutes gave me a splitting headache! After looking at the EQ to see what in the HELL that guy did to it, I saw one slider after another up and down then the next one was up and the next one was down, all the way from one end to another with few exceptions! Now you're telling me that this "THX certified sound tech" did a good job just because it showed up as a perfectly flat line on his R2? Hell no.

You "I tune with an R2 and the fader must play at 5" guys are clearly never doing any listening and fine tuning afterwards with the most important test instrument of all...your ears!

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Perhaps you would be so kind as to list a dozen "properly recorded" tracks of the last 10 years for referencing purposes?

When I have helped open the projection booths at various theaters I have always found that the THX guys have the "WOW" reel that they listen to once after the final EQ. Every time I have seen them do this they only used the SR reel as it didn't have digital encoding on it. I guess the newer reels do.

Also there is the questionable practice of using only mic 1 when setting the final SPL. I think this is THX recommended practice and frankly I think it is downright foolish! Checking the individual spectral response for each microphone will usually reveal quite significant deviations from flat, even though the multi-mic averaged response is showing flat. So why set the SPL using a non-flat source and why use a mic which may not represent the true average SPL? Very bad idea, THX!!

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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

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I feel if you have to play at 6 or below, then something has gone wrong with the alignment.

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And, hey! Let's be careful out there.

~Manny.

As an audience member, I prefer movies to be loud, especially on action films.. It's part of the movie theater experience isn't it? Also it drowns out the people that enjoy talking during the film. I wonder what the theaters I go to play at, because It's been a long time since I have walked out of a theater thinking the sound was powerful or even close to being loud. Even the big movies this year such as Monsters Inc., Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter where I saw it in two separate theaters played very low and unimpressive. From what I could tell, I bet they were good sounding movies. That's the frustrating part. I guess I am just spoiled from the theater I used to go to before I moved because the sound was always loud and thunderous, and that included the auditoriums that were not THX certified. I find myself going to the theater a lot less now because I know not to expect much from the sound.

My personal opinion is it is better to be on the loud side then not. It is terrible to go to a movie and have hard time hearing what the actors are saying. Good comedies are a good example. Several movies such as "There's Something About Mary" and "The Nutty Professor 2" the laughter was louder then the film. All you could do was lip read in parts.

There's one common misconception throughout many of the posts particularly among those who regard "The Matrix" as a new religion.

It's that mature technicians are somehow, not qualified to judge correct volume levels.

Correctly calibrated volume, when appropiate, CAN enhance the overall movie experience but, in inexperienced hands it can also ruin it. The matter shouldn't be entirely subjective. The conciencious technician will consider (a) The intentions of the film-makers and (b) The expectations of the audience. The least important aspect is what the technician likes.

For the record, I've never forgotten the thrill, as an audience member, of Roadshow presentation when the curtains (traveller?) would close following the flat/mono ads/short and trailers, there would be a minute or so of silence. And then the thunderous opening chords of the Overture in multi-channel stereo.

Seems off-topic I know, but many technicians who advocate overplaying today have sadly, never experienced this wonder.

It's ALWAYS better on the big screen.

Kind regards,