NEW UPDATED Room Calibration for Film and TV Post

[funkcity]

I know and the beatings will continue until....

In 1955 Earnest Borgnine starred in the Academy Award winning "Marty".

[dr sound]

Poster: funkcity
Subject: Re: UPDATED Room Calibration for Film and TV Post

I know and the beatings will continue until....

In 1955 Earnest Borgnine starred in the Academy Award winning "Marty".

dr.sound replies:
It wasn't until after 1955 that this "Marti" was born.
Now, back to the beatings!

[Ciaran]

Is there any suggested level for stereo film mixing? I use 85dB for my LCRS and 5.1 mixing, but I am doing a stereo documentary mix right now, and that feels too hot.

[networker]

85 will sound too loud in a tiny room, (Is that assumption correct?).

You could try 83 or even all the way down to 79. (tv mixing monitor levels). Just be sure that you pay attention to levels. As you bring down your monitor levels, your mixes' dynamic range will reduce. That MAY be a good thing but either way, be aware.

[Arno Peeters]

Dunno if I can find the guts to join this thread (or 'threat'). I'm desperately trying to find the best possible way to let all I've read boil down to hands-on information, but it ain't easy, so bare with me for a moment...

I have fairly large room (10'8" x 24'3" x 24'7") and a well balanced set of custom build active speakers (Audio F ref monitors F2) in a 3ft circle, set up according to the P&E Wing recommendations and reigned by a SPL2380 controller. I'm by no means Dolby/THX/DTS-certified and I do surround with a Digi002r and a Yamaha 01V96 (don't tell me it can't be done ;-).

I'm doing experimental 5.1 music since 1999 and just recently I mixed a first commercial DVD-release (DJ/VJ techno thing).

Just out of sheer enthusiasm but also out of 'technical insecurity', I went through all there is to read and test: from bassmanagement to the K-System Proposal and from ITU via AES to EBU....After my first calibrations with a SPL RadioShack-meter and the BlueSky-testfiles, I'd like to get more precise and here's where I get stuck.

Since I do mostly music, I have decided to go for the 79db, with surrounds dropped 2 to 3 db. 'Bought a ECM8000 measurement mic and I've been fooling around with The ETF-5 sw but some questions remain:

• - There a several stages where I can set levels: the speakers, the mixer (monitor gain)... Shouldn't each component output been measured first to know it's 'unity gain'? or is the main focus for listening-levels the SPL-monitor controller?
  
  - What gain should I use on the measurement-mic? I can use the RadioShack-thing to adapt the mic-gain so it reads the same level, but somehow it feels I'm missing the point here...
  
  - How to calibrate can be found all over the web, but there's little said about pointing the mic. I've read: ' ...angled 45 degrees, pointing to the tweeter ' and ' for the rear-channels, point your mic between the left front and left surround speaker '... Some say you should move away from the mic when measuring, but the real-world scenario is that me, the engineer is part of the 'furniture' (and thus the natural reflections) as well.... Is there any final word on this?
  
  - Some say: mix with bassmanagement on, others say: leave that to the consumer-end. Can I emulate bass-redirection by simply faking the crossover in PT or in the 01V96? 80Hz HPF and LPF (send and added to the LFE) on the mains? What would be the slope on the filters? Unfortunately I don't have any plugs that can do that (Woofie, Waves etc.)

Well, I can imagine some of you feel it ain't worth it, helping out a LE-user on this, but I'm just trying to take it as serious as I can under my circumstances. I feel it makes a big difference and according to many surround productions, even in Hollywood there's lots to learn.... Finally on the far other end, I've seen how many consumers set up their 5.1 sets and it makes me wonder: pearls for swines or will they eventually come to appreciate the New Dynamics as opposed to squashed commercials and no-life-left CD-productions?

[Arno Peeters]

...where once eagles dared..

[Arno Peeters]

guess not huh....

[Arno Peeters]

guess not huh....

[dr sound]

Arno,
You ask many questions for your particular set up. I can't get into each aspect of it because there are so many variables. Working with "LE" has NOTHING to do with it! As for the Radio Shack SPL and what angle, read the link! It spells it out.

[Arno Peeters]

Thanks for chiming in here: I know it's a Wild West when it comes to standards for surround, so I agree that there are too many variables to give straight answers (it's just that I'd like to get as close as possbile!-)