Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Worst sound mixes ever

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-10-2005, 05:29 PM:

We have the best sound mixes thread, but what about really bad mixes? A few that come to mind...

Threesome - Dolby A analog - Terribly spitty dialogue that can't be fixed with any amount of tweeking.

xXx - any format - Compressed to hell!

Charlie's Angels II - any format - Same thing as xXx. Flat out bad mixing.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-10-2005, 06:13 PM:

The Mummy - any format - Way too much treble. Anyone who liked it is an asshole.

Just about any early DTS mix - Used a ton of high-end to trick audiences that digital was supposedly ten times cleaner than any sound ever heard before in a theater, including 70mm mag. It's the same crap they pulled with early CDs.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-10-2005, 09:06 PM:

Oh my I forgot about The Mummy! Yes, that was a horrible track!!!

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 01-10-2005, 09:13 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
It's the same crap they pulled with early CDs.

Actually it was those dumbass Sony people that screwed up the math for the early CD recording that made those sound like tin siding on a mobile home in a wind storm CRAP!

If "we" were smart and thought about Sony's GREAT track history with Beta and CDs, we would have NEVER fell for SDDS... They have a great commercial failure track record...

Posted by Christian Volpi (Member # 2370) on 01-10-2005, 09:39 PM:

Joe, I agree with both your statements. The Mummy had so much potential (as far as sound goes) and they blew it. As far as the early DTS releases goes, the first print that we played through our first DTS unit was Starship Troopers, once again it had the potential for a great soundtrack but where was the low-end? When something explodes your supposed to feel the seats shake but instead your ears are ringing because of all the high-end. Worst sound mix ever? I'd have to go with Buffalo '66. I saw it opening weekend at the AMC Odyssey 24 in Omaha. I don't know if it was the print or the shotty AMC speaker array but it sounded as if I was listening to a movie at the Burger King drive-thru menu. It was so muffled it made my head hurt.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-10-2005, 10:21 PM:

Okay, this is an easy target: "The Blair Witch Project." Sure, it was a low budget movie. But that damned, naggy ass lady's constant bitching and other shit I now (thankfully) vaguely remember was like fingernails on a chalkboard.

For truly bad sound mixes, please check just about any analog track on a current movie trailer. Overly loud shit. That goes double for the TV commercials now stuffed on movies.

quote: Joe Redifer
It's the same crap they pulled with early CDs.

Frankly, I think the music industry is doing an even worse job across the board with current CDs today. Many are now mixed so overdriven and clipped they sound like shit. I have to wonder if the music industry is doing this on purpose. Maybe they're doing this to make all those low bitrate MP3 and AAC (iTunes) music files seem like they sound as good as the standard LPCM CD track. Or maybe it's another way to get people to fork over some money for SACD or DVD-A.

Posted by Thomas King (Member # 2745) on 01-10-2005, 10:38 PM:

When we showed "Van Helsing" it went through in SRD with an error rate of 4-5, which is pretty good for our digital prints, seeing as we get old horrible scabby ones.

The L,R,C and S channels were frequently hitting +20db on the dolby box; I had to run it at 5.3. They reccomended running it at seven; our PA wouldn't have taken that. Come to think it, neither would the audience.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 01-11-2005, 12:03 AM:

The Aviator, at times, gave me a headache from being over cranked. I saw it in probably our finest auditorium, and it was just too harsh at times.

I'll say I enjoyed the mix on Van Helsing, but it was bad in that it was too harsh. Die Another Day had the same problem during many action sequences. See, there's good loud and bad loud. Good loud is Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan. Bad loud are the two titles mentioned above.

AJG

Posted by Ari Nordström (Member # 288) on 01-11-2005, 04:48 AM:

"Con Air" was a pretty bad mix in SRD, IMHO.
As for 70mm mag mixes, "The Wild Bunch" was really disappointing. Unimaginative and boring.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-11-2005, 06:49 AM:

The mixing in Godzilla was hideous. If you had the volume loud enough to make out the dialogue, the growls and stomps were so loud as to inflict permanent hearing damage. Turn the monster down to a bearable level and the dialogue became an inaudible mumble, drowned out by all the other music and effects.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-11-2005, 10:07 AM:

I didn't care much for the mix on "Kiss The Girls," but I'm not sure if this was more a problem with the 35mm print rather than the mix itself. The audio quality was very harsh. It sounded like badly EQ-ed analog but with discrete surrounds. This was a Dolby Digital show in a newly opened THX-certified theater in Wichita Falls.

Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 01-11-2005, 10:28 AM:

YENTL, in Dolby A stereo has the worst mix i've ever heard.
The dialog is whisper quiet, while the songs and score are at rock concert level; I had to keep one hand on the volume knob while showing this film. Anyone know if the 4track mag prints of this title had this problem?

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 01-11-2005, 11:12 AM:

Terminator 3: Rise of the Guv'nah...

We ran this sub-run in our DTS house. Never had a problem with any other movie before, and we showed LOTS of action flicks in that house. But on this movie, the HF was SO HARSH in a lot of the explosion scenes, and especially the scene where the crane is smashing through all that glass, that it BLEW OUR DIAPHRAGM on our left horn. Mind you, we were running this at 4 on a CP65 and you had to lean forward to hear the dialog in the quiet scenes. But when the action started, LOOK OUT!

Sucks that the crane/glass scene was in the middle of the film, so for the rest of the movie, the sold-out house had to hear the constant crackle from the left horn. [Frown]

AFAIK, the left horn's diaphragm has not yet been replaced.

=TMP=

Posted by Paul Howard (Member # 1706) on 01-11-2005, 12:04 PM:

Any Jerry Bruckhiemer film
especially Armageddon (flat, compressed just not nice to hear)
even recently with National Treasure, hardly any atmosphere in the track.
Why?

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 01-11-2005, 12:49 PM:

quote: Dan Lyons
Anyone know if the 4track mag prints of this title had this problem.

The 4track mag prints of "Yentl", when it opened in Hollywood at the Cinerama Dome and Westwood at the Village Theatre, both sounded wonderful. There was no problems with sound on those engagements. I saw the film at both theatres, they both had a full rich sound to them.

One advantage that film patrons got when a Big film opened in Hollywood and Westwood, California. Was that the Studios would pay for a Sound Call by Dolby. Dolby would come in and EQ the house for the engagement. The projectionist did a run though of the film and got a Studio Call (Studio Rate for the time). Disney would do this on everything they opened in Westwood and Hollywood.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-11-2005, 05:35 PM:

quote: Paul Howard
Any Jerry Bruckhiemer film

No kidding!!! How did I forget about these?

Tom, that auditorium probably had a nice peak in the upper midrange/high frequencies somewhere. That would explain also why this particular movie was ear shattering in that auditorium, because I remember running it at 7.0 just like 99% of all other movies with no such problem. If you had EV speakers in there with the dts, that's also another bad combination (and I am not the only person I've talked to who has noticed this). There's something harsh about that combination that does not exist with SDDS or SRD.

As a general rule, theaters that need adjustment of the fader on a movie by movie basis suffer from poor tuning. Yes there are exceptions, but they generally don't turn up more than one every few months.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-11-2005, 05:43 PM:

quote: Bill Gabel
The 4track mag prints of "Yentl", when it opened in Hollywood at the Cinerama Dome and Westwood at the Village Theatre, both sounded wonderful. There was no problems with sound on those engagements. I saw the film at both theatres, they both had a full rich sound to them.

You watched "Yentl"...TWICE? [Eek!]

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 01-11-2005, 05:53 PM:

Yes

One night I went with this girl I was seeing. [beer]

Night two I went with another girl to see it. [beer]

And I could get into the theatres on pass too. [thumbsup]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-11-2005, 06:30 PM:

...you meant "with that guy I was seeing", right?

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 01-11-2005, 08:15 PM:

Your So Funny [beer]

Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 01-12-2005, 11:05 AM:

Beware Michael !

"Yentl" is even better than those fine ALW-things !
Even though we only had it in Dolby A....
A truly magnificent film except for the closing scene, pasted directly from "Funny Girl".

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-12-2005, 01:07 PM:

Nothing beats the "Olsen Gang" though.