Lfe. must I?

[ppen]

Hello. I've got a feature doc heading out to a bunch of festivals. Submissions are all ltrt, but the exhibition copies will need my 5.1 mix. It will be delivered on digital tape. HD Cam or the like. I've got it sounding great with nothing in the lfe channel. I mix bass managed in a calibrated room. The mix sounds great on my home Joe rig as well. There's no shortage of bass. Is it acceptable to leave the lfe blank? Will it confuse operators? This mix will sound fine on any full range system. I don't want to risk muddying things up with more bottom than is already there. What say you? Thanks.

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[georgia]

simple answer: don't bother.

If it sounds good it is good. There are no rules that require you to create an LFE channel. just deliver in 5.1 with the .1 with nothing in it.

cheers
geo

[apple-q]

Originally Posted by ppen

Hello. I've got a feature doc heading out to a bunch of festivals. Submissions are all ltrt, but the exhibition copies will need my 5.1 mix. It will be delivered on digital tape. HD Cam or the like. I've got it sounding great with nothing in the lfe channel. I mix bass managed in a calibrated room. The mix sounds great on my home Joe rig as well. There's no shortage of bass. Is it acceptable to leave the lfe blank? Will it confuse operators? This mix will sound fine on any full range system. I don't want to risk muddying things up with more bottom than is already there. What say you? Thanks.

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The LFE is called low frequency EFFECT channel. using it is up to the mixer. it's not meant as a bass managed woofer for the front. it's for special LF effect "oompfs".
leave it blank if you want to.

there's not even a need to deliver content in the surrounds or L and R. You could even delivery a center only mix if you wanted to.

many of the dogma films are dolby digital but mono center only.

artistic decision.

[conleec]

+1, what Georgia said. The LFe is completely optional in the 5.1 spec. Lots of shows are delivered 5.0. And most consumer players bass manage anyhow, sending lots of lows to the subwoofer.

Chris

[JSt0rm]

I think you should put a big boom as your credit rolls by

[ppen]

Thanks folks.

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[kkfaudio]

You could put a note on the label as ".1 unused" or something similar.

I had QC question a mix once when there was nothing there - surprised they noticed, but at least they asked about it...

[philper]

The only hassles I've had with not delivering a .1 channel have been with DVD authoring people who didn't understand what they were doing. Almost none of the docs I mix have LFE tracks, and they all have L/C/R/Ls/Rs tracks.
If they really hassle you then give them an empty track and label it LFE.

phil p

[InternJesse]

When playing a movie through a 5.1 home system, do all home systems utilize the woofer only for sounds that were sent thru the LFE send during the mix? Or do some send all signal below say... 120Hz (or whatever the woofer XO is)?

[pisser]

I failed qc on "Facing Ali" because we only had two lfe fx in the film. They felt there should be more! We had a good laugh after we settled the producers down. ????

[insomaniac]

Originally Posted by InternJesse

When playing a movie through a 5.1 home system, do all home systems utilize the woofer only for sounds that were sent thru the LFE send during the mix? Or do some send all signal below say... 120Hz (or whatever the woofer XO is)?

Most (if not all) 5.1 home systems will re-direct sounds below a certain point to the sub, since many home systems ship with tiny satellite speakers that have issues with low end. This is commonly referred to as "bass management", and is separate from the dedicated LFE channel in a 5.1 mix.

[Tom Fleischman]

Creative decisions are completely up to you. If someone tries to reject your track because there is no sub explain that it was a creative choice. That will be the end of it. QC departments sometimes get a bit, shall we say, overzealous at times, but they do not rule the roost and in my experience they will respect creative choices.

[mikevarela]

Something to think about...

QC, if there is one, might kick back a 5.1 without an LFE channel. In that case, maybe some LFE in the head music, or credits, just a tiny redirect of the music.

If it's going directly to the theater you might not have to worry about this.

[minister]

Originally Posted by mikevarela

Something to think about...

QC, if there is one, might kick back a 5.1 without an LFE channel. In that case, maybe some LFE in the head music, or credits, just a tiny redirect of the music.

Why? As Tom Fleischman points out, The QC dept does not make creative choices. You simply need to tell them that it is a creative decision not to use the LFE. I would not go through the motions of redirect to the LFE as you suggest b/c a QC dept said it might be a good idea. I will fix technical glitches, for sure.

[soundboy]

I got a QC note on this from a project I did for Starz. They asked the client why there was nothing in the lfe track. The client than asked me. An explanation of bass management, and creative choices ensued. Starz dropped the QC note.

[apple-q]

Originally Posted by minister

Why? As Tom Fleischman points out, The QC dept does not make creative choices. You simply need to tell them that it is a creative decision not to use the LFE. I would not go through the motions of redirect to the LFE as you suggest b/c a QC dept said it might be a good idea. I will fix technical glitches, for sure.

+1

Will those QC-people also complain about the missing dialog when they check "The Artist"? I wouldn't be surprised.

[nucelar]

Originally Posted by apple-q

+1

Will those QC-people also complain about the missing dialog when they check "The Artist"? I wouldn't be surprised.

HAHA yeah something really went wrong with that layback... also the chrominance levels are waaay too low...

[Darentsmith]

Originally Posted by JSt0rm

I think you should put a big boom as your credit rolls by

HA! Gonna do this on the next project I deliver. Sounds like fun

[mikevarela]

Fleishman's right, just dropping in my 2cents. Reason being that the client might not understand and have it kicked back from QC and it could raise issues. I've seen it done. Possible work a-rounds are to minimize but use LFE.

If it's artistic then by all means, don't include. If it's mixed on a proper system, bass management will sounds great, so will full range.

Just wanted to throw out a possible hitch that might arise down the road.