Loudness and room-size was: TV-Mix for Theatre

[philper]

Frank, didn't you premix the ambience material for "The Perfum" in a smaller room ? I experienced the same thing on a short I did a few weeks ago, premixing the dialog in a smaller room and it all turned out to be too quiet when I compared it to a movie mix. I upped the levels about 6-7 dB to get it right again.

Just the dialog or the whole mix?

Philip Perkins

[Frank Kruse]

I prepared 5.0, stereo and Quad stems of ambiences (atmos) and the crowds in my edit room. All the individual ADR crowds were pre-panned to a couple of LCR outputs. After finding out that 85dB(c) is by far too lound for a smaller room I calibrated to around 79dB(c) wich worked very well. The stems translated very well to the stage in both levels and front rear balance. It was the first time for me to delivery virtual pre-mixed to the stage so I wasn´t sure if it would work but since we did some listening sessions prior to the mix I had the chance to adjust the volumes of the edit room.
Since that time I´ve moved over to prepare 5.0, Quad and stereo stems that run as virtual mixed inside PT and still leave the chance on the large stage to adjust balance between the stems or change elements in PT if something turns out to be too lound etc.
I wouldn´t say 79 is a rule of thumb for smaller rooms because it really depends on each individual situation. In my case it worked well.
When I listen to the master of Perfume and my system runs at 85dB(c) It´s way too loud.

Frank.

[soundworx]

Frank,

How big is your room (meters please, I'm from Europe as well...) and how far away are your speakers from the listening position?

Greets, Peter

I prepared 5.0, stereo and Quad stems of ambiences (atmos) and the crowds in my edit room. All the individual ADR crowds were pre-panned to a couple of LCR outputs. After finding out that 85dB(c) is by far too lound for a smaller room I calibrated to around 79dB(c) wich worked very well. The stems translated very well to the stage in both levels and front rear balance. It was the first time for me to delivery virtual pre-mixed to the stage so I wasn´t sure if it would work but since we did some listening sessions prior to the mix I had the chance to adjust the volumes of the edit room.
Since that time I´ve moved over to prepare 5.0, Quad and stereo stems that run as virtual mixed inside PT and still leave the chance on the large stage to adjust balance between the stems or change elements in PT if something turns out to be too lound etc.
I wouldn´t say 79 is a rule of thumb for smaller rooms because it really depends on each individual situation. In my case it worked well.
When I listen to the master of Perfume and my system runs at 85dB(c) It´s way too loud.

Frank.

[airon]

Just the dialog or the whole mix?

Philip Perkins

At first I thought, just the dialog, but I had to turn up everything in the end. I did comparisons to dialog in movies that I knew realy well, coming off DVDs, so that was my reference. It turns out 79dB SPL C-weighted is about right for the small room I worked in. It played well in a theater thereafter.

My rooms were about 75 cubic meters and 60 cubic meters in size.

[Frank Kruse]

Frank,

How big is your room (meters please, I'm from Europe as well...) and how far away are your speakers from the listening position?

Greets, Peter

I moved my gear to a temporary edit-room in Munich for that project. It was an ex-recording room. Very dry acoustics. I guess about 6mx4mx2,50m if I remember correctly.
My room in berlin is about 6mx5mx3m. (last figure is room height). The room is brand new and I´m still tweaking the acoutics. Listening position is a little bit behind the center of the room.

frank.

[georgia]

How about a test just for the sake of interest? Would any of you "BIG" dub stage guys be willing to send 1 minute of a feature mixed in your room, along with 1 minute of each of the 5.1 stems to myself and a couple other mid-size rooms and a couple small room folk? We could double check the room calibration and listen to the 1 minute of mix and 1 minute of each split stem. to 85db and all the rooms could calibrate and then adjust the mix to "sound right". If we could get a good sample of room sizes it may lead to some interesting (albet subjective ) results.

The original room could post the room dimension, calibration and A-chain.
We could all post the same info, and the differential monitor levels that may crop up.

I volunteer to take all the data and put together some charts and a synopsis.

cheers
geo

[CD Productions]

I would participate in this. I have a small room. I have had the opposite problem. A feature I just mixed at 85 in my small room was too loud when I took it to the large mix stage. The EQ and placement were fine, just the level was too hot.
The idea of ER adding to loudness is an interesting one, but it does not take into account accoustically treated rooms. If a small room is treated with absorbing material and bass traps, as well as some diffusion for space, ER is taken out of the equasion. I'm not and accoustician( I don't even play one on TV), but we are talking about rooms with acoustical treatment. No one here has set up a small to mid sized room with just bare walls and a mixing board.

[Branko]

Charles,
if you're interested, please contact me to participate in a test program we developed in order to find some relationship between loudness and room size.
Branko

[Frank Kruse]

The test of my fried goes like this:

He plays back a piece of auddio in a large dolby/THX-alligned theater @85dB(c). Next door is a small edit-suite 5.1 setup same piece of film. People can walk back and forth between the two rooms and in the small room each can adjust the volume (blindly) so the the volume matches to the big room to his taste (one by one person of course). Test is done with various signals. Pink noise, dialogue only, music, full program film.


frank.

[airon]

deleted - double post