Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Standard mixing levels for movie theater, DVD, broadcast TV, commercials etc

paulo m · 19th March 2010

Just reading through the threads here and would like to introduce another topic on the debate, if you don´t mind:

regarding trailer and commercials voice overs for cinema presentation, what are your experiences regarding channel assignment and level? Are you using compression or other effects to bring the voice over to a really in your face kind of sound or not? Where do you usually pan, to the center only or try to have divergence to front left and right also? I recently read a book from T. Holman were he refers that in some movie, they placed the voice over on the main three front channels to give it a closer and more intimate sound that could easily be diferentiated in timbre to the film dialogues.

What average level do you mix to, considering for example the meter bridge scale on the Dolby DMU? In TV, I usually set my voice over levels around -20 dbfs, as I start to add music and effects the meters would easily go above -10 dbfs.Then I mix by hear, just taking control of mix elements by compressing individual elements if needed and then applying a gentle compression on main bus. This way I can achieve a good degree of loudness without smashing the signal and during the years, this has proved more than adequate.

But in TV, dynamic range is short, compared to the cinema, so I really want to take advantage of that, in order to provide a cleaner sound and definition.

I come from TV business but starting doing trailer and add sound for the cinema at the moment, so any experiences welcome.Thanks

19th March 2010	#59
paulo m Gear nut Joined: Dec 2008 Location: Portugal Posts: 132	Just reading through the threads here and would like to introduce another topic on the debate, if you don´t mind: regarding trailer and commercials voice overs for cinema presentation, what are your experiences regarding channel assignment and level? Are you using compression or other effects to bring the voice over to a really in your face kind of sound or not? Where do you usually pan, to the center only or try to have divergence to front left and right also? I recently read a book from T. Holman were he refers that in some movie, they placed the voice over on the main three front channels to give it a closer and more intimate sound that could easily be diferentiated in timbre to the film dialogues. What average level do you mix to, considering for example the meter bridge scale on the Dolby DMU? In TV, I usually set my voice over levels around -20 dbfs, as I start to add music and effects the meters would easily go above -10 dbfs.Then I mix by hear, just taking control of mix elements by compressing individual elements if needed and then applying a gentle compression on main bus. This way I can achieve a good degree of loudness without smashing the signal and during the years, this has proved more than adequate. But in TV, dynamic range is short, compared to the cinema, so I really want to take advantage of that, in order to provide a cleaner sound and definition. I come from TV business but starting doing trailer and add sound for the cinema at the moment, so any experiences welcome.Thanks __________________ Best regards Paulo