Sound City

Jarvis · Post by **Jarvis** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:24 am

I watched Sound City on video with my sister today. Loved the first 3/4s of it. Is it just me (and my sis), or a bad dupe or what, but the audio was horrible! Music blasting and dialogue indecipherable. Yes, my ears have been through the ringer (I regret nothing) but a film about audio quality and they couldn't throw on a little compression to even out the volume? I question my hearing on a regular basis but this seemed inexcusable. Tell me I'm wrong.
Apologies to the makers. I will never be as famous as you but I was all WTF.

tjcasey1 · Post by **tjcasey1** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 5:57 am

I watched it in my living room on an audiophile surround system and the sound worked great - I didn't have to ride the gain at all. Of course, it was fairly loud, like in a theater.

Other folks have complained about the wildly varying volume, though, so you're not crazy. Maybe the stereo mix isn't very good, or maybe the soundtrack doesn't translate well on a normal playback device.

If you ever do get the chance to watch it on a killer system, go for it. You'll love it.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 9:09 am

saw it in the theater and as far as i can remember the sound was ok there.

but we've watched other stuff at home that's had terrible sound. there was some sophia coppola movie ms morespace insisted we watch....we had to turn it all the way up, and even then, after 5 minutes we had to put the subtitles on because the audio for the dialogue was so bad.

ms morespace used to be a filmmaker, so she was ranting and raving about the shitty sound. and the punchline is....we're watching the credits and all the sound/post was done at skywalker sound. i ask you: how is this possible?

kingtoad · Post by **kingtoad** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 11:44 am

I saw it at home and my experience was exactly the same - blaring music and inaudible dialogue. I guess they did it to make the music sound more impressive, which might have worked in the cinema but was just annoying on a small TV speaker.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 11:51 am

so many movies are like that. super annoying at home. i'm considering hooking an RNC up to the stereo just so we can watch movies without having to ride the damn volume the whole time.

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:00 pm

Yeah, that is a pain. My understanding is that they mix everything at very low volumes, so you'd think that they would have a good grasp on what's up, but also they are pushing the envelope constantly on music, SFX, and Foley, so sometimes the dialogue (you know, the important part) gets buried. Also, it seems like 5.1 and 7.1 is where they're spending their time, so those of us watching playback with only stereo get shafted. It's so different in the theater, because there are so many speakers and everything is so loud most of the time...

I wonder what insights Bob O. could bring to this? (he worked in film for quite a few years after Motown)

GJ

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 1:43 pm

Anyone notice how so many recent releases don't even give the option of stereo? It's all 5.1 now, etc.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:30 pm

I suppose it's possible that an indie release like Sound City (or the Sofia Coppola flick) might not have had the budget for a separate home video mix. In the theater you can have the loud excitey parts considerably louder than the dialog bits, and still run the show hot enough that people can hear the dialog. You can take advantage of the wide dynamic range of the digital playback system. For a home setup, a narrower dynamic range is probably better but if the film's budget doesn't allow for another mix, you are going to be stuck with turning the volume up and down.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 5:06 pm

totally makes sense. but wouldn't you think if they had the budget to go to skywalker sound in the first place, they could swing the extra bucks for the home mix?

honkyjonk · Post by **honkyjonk** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 5:59 pm

Or maybe the extra few bucks to have some hack intern throw a compressor plug on the 2 buss?

iC · Post by iC » Mon Jun 23, 2014 6:30 pm

Skywalker Sound takes on no-budget work very consistently....
http://www.skysound.com/credits/feature_film/
And I suspect, just like we deal with on amateur recordings, the pig still looks like a pig even with Princess Leia's lipstick on it.....

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 9:09 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:totally makes sense. but wouldn't you think if they had the budget to go to skywalker sound in the first place, they could swing the extra bucks for the home mix?

A valid question.

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 4:17 pm

DG probably wanted the music to be BLARING LOUD. I mean, listen to Foo Fighters. No wait, don't do that.

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