NEW UPDATED Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Having seen this question asked nearly weekly, I have decided to post a few reference sites that can be used to calibrate your room for post.
First purchase a Radio Shack SPL meter # 33-4050(Analog). Then follow these links:
NEW UPDATED 12/12/2020
Dolby Pink Noise . Click on "The Dub Stage Dropbox" Link below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0wwhnbro0...Noise.wav?dl=0

This Dolby Link is UPDATED as of 12/12/2020
https://developer.dolby.com/globalas...ers-manual.pdf

Read the whole manual but go to Chapter 5 and read the whole chapter especially section 5.3 to learn how to take a correct measurement.
Then go to:
THIS IS JUST REVISED for 2013!!!!
Advanced Television Systems Comitee Inc.
ATSC Recomended Practice Techniques For Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudnesss for Digital Television

Here is the Link:
http://atsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2...tice+A+85+2013


NEW 11-21-17 :
Here is a link to the just released ATSC 3.0 Audio Information.
Read up! Here comes Immersive Audio to you at home:
https://www.atsc.org/wp-content/uplo...o-Part-1-4.pdf

and here:
https://www.atsc.org

================================================== ====================



This is New 3-16-13 HERE IS A NEW "ROOM CALIBRATION CHEAT SHEET LINK" from Danijel Milosevic
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...iNw/edit?pli=1


Use the Dolby Pink Noise above.



And this on Dolby Room requirements link:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post-...uirements.html

and this new link:
http://www.aes.org/technical/documents/AESTD1001.pdf

and the latest Link for Music Mixing in 5.1: THIS IS A REVISED LINK
http://www2.grammy.com/PDFs/Recordin...rs/5_1_Rec.pdf

And this about Subwoofer Calibration:
http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/m...TN99051701.pdf

Here is an interesting articles on "The X Curve"
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...es-6-2002.html

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/post...uirements.html

NEW AS OF APRIL 5, 2015
Another very interesting article from Meyer Sound on "Calibrating Cinema Sound Systems"
https://studylib.net/doc/18607557/ca...-sound-systems

Between these links you should be ready to go.


Adding this to the original post.It is a link for finding your room modes.
Here it is:
http://www.realtraps.com/modecalc.htm



Keep these links to hand to your fellow Mixers.

REMEMBER.... MOST ROOMS ARE SMALL.
MOST PEOPLE SHOULD START BETWEEN 77 and 82 SPL NOT 85!!!


NOTE: As of July 17th, 2008 this sticky had OVER 61,0000 views
before the reset of the views counter!!! Add those views to the number you now see.
As of December 2020 this post has had over 294,800 views !!!!

Take Care,

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Nice links!

Cheers
georgia

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

The bluesky was extremely helpful, as it included the band limited pink noise which it seems is misunderstood, or overlooked by many.

Any opinions on the bluesky monitors for a 5.1 system? They promote it rather heavily that Skywalker uses them quite extensively.

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

anders - i mixed on a blue sky 5.1 system for about 2 years, doing mostly dvd mixes and premixing for feature film. i enjoyed working on them 8-12 hours a day, and my mixes seem to have translated rather well. i highly recommend them. like any other system it will take some time to learn how to mix properly on them, but once you do i found them lovely.

-adam-

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Bump.
I thought I'd bump this up every 3 weeks so the questions don't get asked over and over.............................................. ..............................

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Hi Dr. Sound!

Now we are on the subject of this. . .

Can you recommend a good CD or DVD with alignment tones (besides the Blue Sky files)

Thanks in advance for your opinion.

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

hi Marti
How goes life in the Left coast?


PS: try the MIX ref CD...
( just though I'd help..)


cheers
georgia

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Georgia,
Hey there!! Things are OK. Hope all is well with you!!
Get yourself some new HD Accel systems instead of brand "X"
now that the ilok issue has been dealt with.

Dennis,
As for tones, go to my link and click on this
http://www.surroundassociates.com/books.html
Bobby has a DVD for you.

Take Care,

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

I just installed a g5 HD2 w/accel for a client.. nice system.

cheers
georgia

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Thanks Marti! You Rock!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Marti,

please elaborate, or post a link

Thanks,
Frank

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

It's that time to BUMP !

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Bumpin in the New Year !!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Bumpin Again!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Adding this to the original post.It is a link for finding your room modes.
Here it is:
http://www.realtraps.com/modecalc.htm

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

BUMPIN

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

aren't u supposed to bump this soon?

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Back by popular demand
BUMPIN

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

New link added to the above:
ttp://www.harman.com/wp/pdf/Loudspeakers&RoomsPt3.pdf
Very good reading! It is also been added to the original post
at the bottom.

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Glad this post was so easy to find. I'm setting up a Blue Sky 5.1 kit and this info proved invaluable.

But—

There is such discrepancy between the 3 sources! Some say Film cal should be all 85dBc and others say the surrounds should be 82dBc. Which is it really?

The Surround Associates strives to make head or tail of the +10dB LFE channel question, but only confuses me further.

Which brings up another question: The Dolby setup, is it talking about Dolby-decoded outputs only? I simply want to monitor uncompressed, pre-encoded 5.1 stems I receive from my music mixer, so do I still follow the +10dB LFE gain or not?

I feel that the advice given doesn't spend enough time explaining the differences between the various sources and encoding methods and how those relate to calibration.

In the end, I did it the Blue Sky way. Let's hope that's somewhat accurate.

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Let me know if you have any problems or questions. Just send me an e-mail. [email protected]

Cheers!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Dan,
Weren't you over on the "Radford Lot" mixing a Feature recently? Are you trying to see how the music translates to the Stage? Keeping in mind the final location (Theatrical, TV, DVD etc) will determine your calibration. If you’re mixing for Features it's 85 c weighted slow. Follow the Dolby guidelines. If your mixing for TV it's typically 79-82spl.Did you contact your Music Mixer and see how/if he calibrated his system? If your still in doubt contact your Re-Recording Mixer at the Stage and have him get you in touch with the Chief Engineer of the facility. He will be able to set you straight.
Take Care,

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Dan,

AFAIK, you use 82 db SPL for a mono surround track (i.e. Dolby Stereo LCRS). In that case, when the channels sum up acoustically, 82+82=85, but only for theatrical mixes. LCRS mixes for TV and DVD use 85 dB for the surrounds. 85 is also used for 5.1 (discrete surround) mixes, theatrical or otherwise.

At least, that's what I think it is. There are a lot of folks on this board who know more than I, so, as always, take the info with a grain of salt and double-check it.

Hope this helps.
-Christian

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Christian,
Go to page 34 in the Dolby link above. Read it and it spells it out for all of you.
That is the reason I put it up there so there would be no doubt on what the levels need to be.

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Thanks, I'm doing my best to get my head around the Dolby spec (in general) and Pascal from Blue Sky was very helpful in sorting out some questions.

Yes, that was me. We just finished last week so I will call Steve B over there and ask how they cal their surrounds. I enjoyed that room very much (spacious!) and the mixers are awesome. I AM trying to see how music translates to stage, though it will benefit temp music as much as the actual score mix stems. Also, I cut some musical effects in quad format for the final but had to do it on stage on headphones, so I didn't really know if it was going to work until the next day when the music mixer let me play it back. That really hit home for me the importance of being able to monitor in 5.1 with accuracy.

Thanks to everybody for their valued input.

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

D'oh! Should've double-checked it myself before I posted. Thanks for catching that.
-Christian

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

man that's handy.. thanks very!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

just wanted to relay a success story. I designed a TINY mix room for my friend's post shop last summer. It is small and we had to do a tremendous amount of bass absorbtion treatment. There is a lot to the story, but i will keep to the point here. After much research and implementation the room was finished and i tweaked it using a rented spectrum analyzer, a radioshack spl meter and the blue-sky test tones.

A few weeks ago, we had our first film mix that was definately going to go to theatres. A VERY interesting film, btw: Todd Solandz's "Palindromes" We mixed for 11 days in the little room then went for a day to sound one in NY to make a dolby digital printmaster from my stems.

I was thrilled to see that Riley Steele, the mixer in charge of the printmastering session did not touch a fader, panner, trim or anything. The mix sounded almost exactly the same in big studio F at sound one as it did in the super small mix room.

Thanks to Marty and all the contributors to this and other forums. This stuff really does work!

Cheers,

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Hey there Doc,

Been reading about you alot. Just a couple of query, how do I read more about those beautiful TDM for surrounds? What are the essentials while doing audio post with video under the NTSC system? Thanks Doc, we all knows you have the answer


jvrs

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Hi!
Just did the leap to 5.1 in my home studio last week (still need to do RTA, waiting for mic).
Opted for the Blue Sky System One 5.1.

I was using Event 20/20Bas + Event 20/20/15. Even without doing any RTA based setup yet (just a quick SPL meter calibration), the difference is night and day. I was amazed at the difference.

Also- Kudos x 10 to Blue Sky!!! When I received my System One 5.1, two of the Sats were the Sat 5's. Called late in the day to verify that I was correct that I was sent the wrong Sats, since the boxes said "Sat 5," but had stickers including as part of my specfic order. All were gone but the receptionist, but she gave me the VP's number, who returned my call within minutes. The next day, got a call to collect info, and the correct Sat 6.5's were in my hands 2 days later!
Blue Sky has been more than helpful, and their customer service has proven to be just as great as the products they offer. Extremely happy is an understatement!

Dr Sound- thx for this thread! Really should be a sticky. I was able to collect 90% of the info presented from multiple sources, but it took me several hours to get all the info from searching around, and trial and error of exactly which "search terms" to use to locate all the info, scouring a few forums in the process.

Quick question: When determining room modes, should one round measurements of the room to nearest foot, or translate inches to percentage (to provide a base-10 number right of decimal)? My room is 11' 10" x 19' 4" x 7' 10". Due to circumstances, I am forced to place/ face on long wall, shooting short, front monitors about 2' off wall, approx 3' equilateral formed from mix position for L/R Front. Ceiling is under 8' due to wood (Pergo type) floor.

I have also recently heard that a Pergo type wood floor is not a great idea, since it is not "real wood," and actually could present certainproblems due to it's properties. True? Better with something like a commercial grade carpet? "Real wood" is not an option at this time.

Lastly, for bass traps: I have been using Auralex, but after much reading, finding that the deisgn/application intention actually comes short of providing what I should need, due to room size. RealTraps look nice, but are there other options?

Thx!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

I second the props for Blue Sky and their customer relations. I just picked up the same system and all my questions about setup and calibration were promptly answered by Pascal (I think the same fellow you were talking about). I also am surprised how much I enjoy the system, because I am used to hearing much more expensive monitors and my brain begins to think that only the "best" sets will sound good to me. Not so with these guys; they sound very good and the integration with the sub is excellent.

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Nikki-k,
Glad to hear about your sucess! As for measuring room modes try using a base 10 number.
If you would like to find out more in regards to your floor, go here:
http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultim...ubb=forum;f=26
I personally am not an Aurelex fan. Maybe it's because most of the rooms that I've heard that use it are pretty poorly laid out control rooms. Go to the above link and ask Ethan. He knows his stuff.
Happy 5.1 mixing!!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Marti- Thanks for the concise post with the links.... A quick question- is there a problem with the Radio Shack digital sound pressure meter? Everyone does seem to be using the analog one, just wondering if the weighting and response is OK on the digital one, seeing as none of the local RS stores seem to have the analog one in stock.
Thanks,
Kevin

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

dr sound replies:
Kevin,
You're welcome. Glad to see it help! As for the Radio Shack Meter, I was told by a few techs who I respect to go with the analog one if it is available. Recently I compared my Analog to the Digital and they read exactly the same so much for that. I hear the Analog is no longer made so you may have to settle with the digital. Good luck and let us all know how it works for you. On a side note about the Radio Shack meter, they come from the factory very close to being calibrated. I've checked a couple vs. my calibrated meter (Dolby calibrated mine when they set up my room for a Printmaster) and they were within a half a db.
Take Care,

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

We have both the analog and digital RadioShack meter but mostly use the analog. They are essentially the same but i believe the digital can only measure in 0.1 db steps whereas the analog one is more precise...

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Wow! Thank you for the nice comments. We try our best to make sure that people get the most out of our systems.

Cheers!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

ok.. you perked up my interest... How do I get a blue sky ssytem into World Wide...? What size to I need for a 5.1 with about 20 feet to the mixing desk and 4 satillites for surrounds? Currently I'm running genelecs

cheers
georgia

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Hello Georgia

Contact Steve Strassberg at the contact information below. Steve will arrange to get you system for evaluation at your studio. Having said that, your room is probably to large for our current "biggest" system, which is Sky System One (a near field system), so we may not currently be able to address your room. Having said that, you may want to check them out anyway. Also, we are working on something "bigger"...

for more information visit:
www.abluesky.com
www.abluesky.com/skysystemone (sky system one)
www.abluesky.com/prodesk (prodesk is a smaller system)
www.abluesky.com/reviews (reviews)
www.abluesky.com/m/p/bs20011a.pdf
- click the above link to download the new Blue Sky International product brochure in Adobe Acrobat format (530KB) -

Steve Strassberg
630 Ninth Avenue. Suite 1110, New York City, NY 10036
(between 44th and 45th street)
Phone: (212) 315-9551

If you have any questions, just e-mail me directly. [email protected]

Cheers!

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Hi Kevin, when I bought my analog meter several months ago, I was told by Radio Shack people that they have stopped producing it. It's no longer in their catalog. I suggest calling RS stores to see if they can get one to you from another store. Or let me know, the one I bought it from had about 6 or 7 left in stock, maybe I could pick one up for you if they still have them...

-Abbott

Re: Room Calibration for Film and TV Post
 

Use a 20 Hz- 20 KHz pink noise at an RMS level equal to a sine (997 Hz or so) whose peak is -18 dB FS. Set your amplifier's gain so that you have 85 dB SPL (C weight), for every single channel, at the listening point. 79 dB SPL (C) for tv or poor broadcast with very limited dynamic.

Before, equalize your room using loudspeaker positioning, tube traps, other...

About LFE channel: set it so that the you have 10 dB more output (in 0 Hz- 150 Hz band circa) than an ideal loudspeaker (full range!) set to previous specifications (85 dB SPL (C)). Use a spectrum analyzer to set your LFE.

Sorry for poor english.

BYE!!!

Simone Corelli