Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hi Pitched Tone On "International" Sound (NOT!)

This is topic Hi Pitched Tone On "International" Sound (NOT!) in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009759

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 02-15-2009, 10:04 AM:

Last night as I'm up in one of the booths starting a round of shows, I get a call from the floor staff about "something being wrong" with the sound in the sold-out "INTERNATIONAL" auditorium.
(DTS Sound)

The booth I was in is located about two long city blocks from the booth I needed to get to, so it took me about 5 or 6min walk/run there.

As I get to the theater lobby, I see a couple of people asking for ticket refunds, and I'm met outside the auditorium by several annoyed patrons who tell me there's an extremely annoying "squeal" in the sound system.

I go up to the booth and scan through the audio channels.
Can't find any problem, but just for fun I try putting the system into byass and re-booting the DTS.

I go back down and people are still complaining.

So I go into the auditorum and sure enough, there is a high-pitched whine that seems to be coming from one the screen speakers.

I go backstage and walk past each speaker and as I'm back there I realize the sound is NOT coming from BEHIND the screen, but in FRONT of it!

So I go out front and begin slowly walking acoss the first row of seats, which were mostly empty since they're so close to the screen.

Suddenly I located the sound- - which was coming from the pocket of a coat draped over a seat in the 2nd row.

The coat belonged to a senior citizen who brought one of those pocket sized hi-gain amplifer/headset thingys to use as an assisted listening device, but decided he didn't need to use it.
(see picture below)

It was in his coat pocket and had somehow gotten turned on and was producing a high-pitched feed-back squeal.

D'oh!

It wasn't intenentional, and the old man was very apologetic.

I was sort of amused and very releived I wasn't going to have to be there till 2am tying to trace and trouble-shoot a non existant sound problem.

My boss wasn't so amused. He had to issue about $60 in refunds
before I found the problem.

The kicker is that one of the people who was complaining the most loudly about "our lousy sound system" was the guys wife who was sitting right next to him.

HERE's A DEVICE SIMILAR TO WHAT HE HAD

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-15-2009, 01:59 PM:

Thought this was a real case with DTS, for I had a DTS-6 do a similar-slight high-pitch squeal out of the center channel.

Sent the unit in to the place in NY and the unit had to be overhauled with the smaller cards and drives along with one of the bigger cards..

-Monte

Posted by Eric Robinson (Member # 2966) on 02-15-2009, 02:30 PM:

Sorry to take joy in your pain, but...

That is funny as he!! [Big Grin]

.
Especially the part about the wife complaining who was sitting right next to it.

High pitched sounds are sometimes tricky to find though, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-15-2009, 02:57 PM:

Same kind of thing happened at my old theater. Room was packed and a woman came out saying that there was a strange intermittent beeping noise coming from the speakers. When the manager walked in with the woman it happened again a few times and he immediately could tell it's coming from inside the crowd nearby where the woman was sitting.

The woman again says "See, it's a problem with your speakers."
He immediately goes "The sound is coming from over here" and drew a circle with his hand pointing to the general area the sound came from. Right then, a woman went for her purse and turned whatever it was onto silent mode.

Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 02-15-2009, 03:02 PM:

We had a similar issue In Ben Button about 3 weeks ago. There was a high-pitch noise and they even stopped the movie, and rebooted the sound tower to hopefully solve the problem, which it didn't. Turns out there was a senior citizen who took off his hearing aid to use assisted listening, but didn't turn the hearing aid off, creating feedback that bothered the whole auditorium. (It's a small under 75-seater.)

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-15-2009, 03:44 PM:

Wasn't there an usher available to try and work out where it was coming from before the manager starts dishing out $60 in refunds?

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-15-2009, 03:58 PM:

quote: John Wilson
Wasn't there an usher available to try and work out where it was coming from before the manager starts dishing out $60 in refunds?

Try != succeed [Wink]

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-15-2009, 10:49 PM:

Hey, it stands to reason that the person next to him was the one to complain the hardest. Surely it was loudest for her!

--jhawk

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 02-16-2009, 08:07 AM:

But, high frequencies are more directional- surely someone noticed where it was really comming from?

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-16-2009, 11:32 AM:

Both high and low frequencies can be very tough to localize.

--jhawk

Posted by Thomas Pitt (Member # 4322) on 02-17-2009, 03:29 PM:

On a slightly related note, when I went to see Bolt 3D I noticed a repetitive buzzing that seemed to be coming out of the left stage (or surround) speakers. Oddly, it was getting louder and quieter at random.

The movie hadn't started yet (still on commercials), so I left the auditorium to go and tell somebody. As I walked out of the door, the buzz increased in volume. It was the fire alarm control panel reporting a fault with the system - and the buzzer was so loud it could be heard in the auditorium! The change in volume was caused by patrons coming into the auditorium, opening the doors and letting the sound through.

Thankfully the buzzing wasn't enough to spoil the movie, though I could still hear it faintly in quiet scenes.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-17-2009, 03:38 PM:

quote: Thomas Pitt
It was the fire alarm control panel reporting a fault with the system

It went through the entire movie??? I guess they don't jump on top of little things like Fire Alarm Control warnings at that cinema then.

I'd be going to another cinema if I were you. [Eek!]

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-17-2009, 06:30 PM:

Apparently, that theater thinks something being on fire is a minor issue.

It's like when I saw this show that the Chef Gordan Ramsey had for choosing his best new chef. They had a restaurant in NYC and at one point they let one oven get WAY too hot and some wood next to it caught on fire and the alarms went off throughout the facility. The guests just sat there, annoyed by the sound and no one evacuated them. One guy smashed a hole in a wall to ventilate the fuel source out, since his experience as a firefighter told him that was the best way. Thankfully it worked (instead of having the fuel moving out bringing the fire out into the facility with it). And in the end, no one from the fire department showed up either.

I was like "WTF? Around here, what those guys did would be illegal."

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 02-17-2009, 07:35 PM:

It may not have been reporting a fire, but rather just general "fault" with the system such as a dead or near dead back-up battery.

Our fire control panel does this and it is annoying as hell. The two times that it has happened to me it has been at been at times that I wasn't able to get to our local battery store to pick up replacements (twin sealed 6v lead-acid) and had to put up with the buzzer all freaking night.

Posted by Phil Ranucci (Member # 3820) on 02-17-2009, 11:07 PM:

What's really funny about your post is that Clive Owens's character suffered from ringing in the ears. At least 2 scenes had no sound except for the ringing.
Years ago I was mixing sound and heard a high squeal that I thought was feedback, but couldn't figure out what was ringing. An elderly man's hearing aid was feeding back. Took the ushers a while to find him which seemed like an eternity. Very painful.