Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Crappy Sound Mix?

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-23-2011, 07:44 PM:

We're playing the movie "Under Our Skin" (the documentary about Lyme Disease) and, although the sound is a lot better than we've had in the past, thanks to the new sound system, it's just not as good as movies we've played in the past few weeks.

The soundtrack is NOT in Dolby Digital. We're playing it in Dolby SR. (Format 05.)

Now, I still haven't given the system a 100% perfect tune-up because I'm waiting for new amplifiers. It would be a waste of time to get a perfect sound balance then have to do it all over again when the new amps are installed.

Still, the sound is good but, from movie to movie, the sound seems to be better one week than it is on the next.

I proposed to my boss that some of the smaller movie companies don't do as good a job making the sound mix as other companies do. While I don't think it's the whole answer, I think it's a contributing factor.

Not every movie company makes perfect sound mixes for every release. We know that even mainstream Hollywood fare can have crappy sound mixes from time to time.

So, what do you think? Do some movies just have crappy sound mixes that they will still sound crummy, no matter how well you tune your system?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-23-2011, 07:56 PM:

Documentaries aren't typically known for having great sound mixes. Still, they shouldn't sound crappy.

Given the level of decline in print quality in recent years I can't help but wonder if the lab did something to botch the stereo optical track. I remember back in the late 1990s when our Carmike location played L.A. Confidential the theater didn't get any DTS discs and had to play it in Dolby SR. The SR track on one of the reels was defective (I don't remember the issue) and that reel had to be replaced.

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 02-23-2011, 08:26 PM:

Studios are spending next to no time on the analog soundtrack.

They used to do a serious print master comparing the digial soundtrack to the SR analog one to make sure it was good as could be, particularly on the steering of the matrix board.

Not so much any more.

Randy, do you have digital readers with your 650?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-23-2011, 08:30 PM:

quote: Randy Stankey
Do some movies just have crappy sound mixes that they will still sound crummy, no matter how well you tune your system?

Yup! And as was noted, the analog track appears to not have much attention given to it anymore.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-23-2011, 10:22 PM:

We do have a digital reader. The BACP DSTR-20. Works well when the print has a Dolby Digital soundtrack. That's the problem. This print didn't. It didn't sound bad, per se. Just not as good as the past few weeks when it was in digital.

I thought when they mastered a soundtrack they mixed it in multi-track then converted it to the various formats like Dolby Digital, Dolby SR, DTS, SDDS from the master and thus, the soundtracks would be congruent if not virtually identical but for some tweaks necessary to optimize it for a given format. Is this not how it is done? Or have they stopped doing it like that?

Like you guys say, documentaries are not known for their sound mixes. Especially these small films. I would probably bet that this movie is a video transfer to film or, at least, some parts of it were.

Regardless, it was my hypothesis that the filmmakers pretty much slap-dabbed the soundtrack together, mastered it to film and called it a day. My boss disagrees. But consider the source. This is the guy who has been arguing with me for 10 years about whether we need Dolby Digital in the first place. Then he books a two-bit documentary produced by some hole-in-the-wall company and tries to tell me that my sound system is bad. (It's always "his" sound system when it works and it's always "my" sound system when it doesn't work.)

I'll concede that my tune-up of the sound system probably could be better but, as I said, I'm holding off doing a full calibration until the new amps are in. Otherwise, it would be a waste of work and, since I have had my salary cut to an hourly wage, the boss would pitch a fit if I clocked in for all that time only to have to do the job all over again.

As I said, the sound in the theater is good. At least as good as you'll hear at the local multiplex if you account for the acoustics of the room. It just needs a little touch up.

But, all my bitching aside, it sounds like you guys are saying my theory is true: Some movies, especially small-time documentaries, just have crappy soundtracks and, no matter how good your system is, they won't sound as good as a print with a good Dolby Digital track.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-23-2011, 10:44 PM:

quote: Randy Stankey
I thought when they mastered a soundtrack they mixed it in multi-track then converted it to the various formats like Dolby Digital, Dolby SR, DTS, SDDS from the master and thus, the soundtracks would be congruent if not virtually identical but for some tweaks necessary to optimize it for a given format. Is this not how it is done? Or have they stopped doing it like that?

Since the early 1990s most movies have been mixed first for 5.1 digital and then converted down to optical analog. Digital has +/-20db or more of headroom whereas Dolby A has only +/-6db and Dolby SR +/-9db. Pretty big difference. To have an optical track worth a damn some careful attention must be given when creating the optical mix so the matrix isn't crashed.

Before the dawn of the digital sound era most movies were mixed with stereo optical in mind and then expanded to 6 tracks if 70mm prints were needed. While the mag sound was definitely a lot better than optical the tracks didn't have the pulse pounding bass and wide dynamics we associate with digital sound. Not all 70mm releases bothered to expand to 6-channel either. Edward Scissorhands on 70mm was really a 4.0 channel release. The movie still sounded pretty good. I really liked Danny Elfman's music score.

quote: Randy Stankey
Some movies, especially small-time documentaries, just have crappy soundtracks and, no matter how good your system is, they won't sound as good as a print with a good Dolby Digital track.

Absolutely. When 5.1 digital sound use was proliferating through movie productions in the early 1990s I saw a number of films (certain dramas and comedies) where I wondered why they even bothered with a digital track.

Documentaries often have unremarkable sound and for much of the 1990s most independent movies being released with digital tracks were pretty unremarkable in the area of sound as well.

Over the past decade it has become a lot easier and cheaper to mix 5.1 audio. So it's no big deal for a modestly budgeted feature to have some aggressive surround sound.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-23-2011, 11:41 PM:

So, I told my boss that I thought the crappy soundtrack was a contributing factor to the poor sound but I think I'll revise my statement.

95% of the reason why the sound was poor was because of the crappy soundtrack!

[Wink]

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 02-24-2011, 12:03 AM:

"To have an optical track worth a damn some careful attention must be given when creating the optical mix so the matrix isn't crashed."

The matrix does not crash. The analog optical soundtrack on the film hard clips first.