Sound levels as a general rule

[jambredz]

Ok so I asked Alex (C2v) for some advise on the general levels of dialogue recording and as usual he was a great help. Now I'm posing this question to the general board. As it pertains to background music, sound fx and such. Is there a general rule on the levels when editing/mixing ?

 

[Razz16mm]

General rule for good speech intelligibility: dialogue levels should be minimum 6dB, better 10dB above background music or ambient sound levels.

 

[Noiz2]

This depends a lot on what your mixing for. TV generally has specifications you have to meet. They now generally want you to hit a DialogNormal level within a few dB. You need a special box from Dolby to get that number, though now I think Dolby has a cheaper software version (cheaper as in $2K or so).

For big screen film you mix by ear in a calibrated space. You can do this at home to a certain extent. To really do it you need a tuned room large enough to put in full film speakers. But you can get reasonably close with near-fields and room treatment and a Radio Shack SPL meter.

Once your system and room are calibrated you just mix till it sounds the way you want. If you and the director are fairly deaf you get a mix like "300", which if you ever heard at it's true playback level your ears are probably still ringing. Matrix II was another super loud mix. On the other hand you get some very quiet nuanced mixes also.

For the DVD they generally will compress it for a "home" playback environment. For video this was pretty extreme sometimes but for DVD not nearly so much.

I generally mix as if I was going to the big screen and then tweak the final for video if it's a video project. Most low budget films are going to be seen mostly on a small screen and IF you get into a festival you will probably be playing against films mixed for video so you probably always want a bit of a pushed mix. I generally do that with a mastering limiter on the Aux track that feeds the master record track and push up the levels till the director and test "screenings" off DVD sound "loud enough" to folks. That way If they ever get distribution and need a theatrical mix I can just un "push" the mix and be there.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

For the DVD they generally will compress it for a "home" playback environment. For video this was pretty extreme sometimes but for DVD not nearly so much.

I generally mix as if I was going to the big screen and then tweak the final for video if it's a video project. Most low budget films are going to be seen mostly on a small screen and IF you get into a festival you will probably be playing against films mixed for video so you probably always want a bit of a pushed mix. I generally do that with a mastering limiter on the Aux track that feeds the master record track and push up the levels till the director and test "screenings" off DVD sound "loud enough" to folks. That way If they ever get distribution and need a theatrical mix I can just un "push" the mix and be there.

I have noticed significant differences in both overall levels and the 'quality' of where dialog is in the Bluray mixes of a number of films we have both DVD and BD disks. Not 'scientific', but for example I play DVD's with the TV audio at 50%, BD often can be played at 25-30%. And the dialog often seems less 'buried' in the mix.

 

[Noiz2]

hmm. I haven't been on a big film with a mix for BlueRay so? I would have suspected that the BR would be "truer" to the theatre mix but?

The other thing that might be going on is Dolby has been sticking metadata in the streams for things like DialNorm and that may be being read by the player and it may be making a more intelligent mix for your system. Where the DVD may not have all of that info.

That is a wild guess. One would think that the DVD would be a more TV mix and would be punchier. But since your dealing with a down-mix performed by the player the newer format may have more info. and thus be creating a better mix.