I know this has been an infuriating topic for a while now, but gosh it’s getting on my nerves. I’m trying to watch Secret Level, finally, and I can’t see half of what’s happening because so many scenes across many of the shorts are pretty much pitch black.

Why?? Why not, y’know, just give us a little bit of fucking contrast? Instead, I have to choose whether to have a light on or to not see the scenes.

  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    5·
    14 hours ago

    In audio, you would test with multiple reference monitors and rooms. Cellphone, car, shitty tv speakers, mono, various headphones, etc. The idea being you record/edit/mix it on normal monitors, but then check it out in ways that normal people will, to see if it translates well or will sound like shit.

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      4 hours ago

      Can confirm. The most important test for my mixes is the car test. Get your buddies together, and hopefully they have a variety of cars. Play it in a nice car with great speakers, play it in a shitty 2001 Corolla with a blown out cone in the passenger door, and as many in between as you can get. The more homogenous the listening experience is across those cars, the better your mix will sound on a variety of systems.

      For most people, their car is the best sound system they own. It’s also where people do a lot of listening, because very few people drive in complete silence. So if it sounds like ass in the car, people will stop listening.

    • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      13 hours ago

      I get where you’re coming from but movie audio also fails here. The same darkness discussion arises about dialogue-to-explosion volume regularly :)

      That doesn’t take away from what you said they “proper” audio work is done that way …

      • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        7 hours ago

        Oh yeah, “movie theater dynamics” on home mixes kills me. I’m so glad Hollywood has, or at least had a period of that being toned down. Like I get the need to have explosions explosively louder than a whispering scene, but Jesus fucking Christ, give me a break, it doesn’t need to be THAT extreme.

        In some movies when I’m watching at home, I swear, there’s a noticable two-mode system that’s quite clearly loud-mode and quiet-mode, that if you had a macro on your volume, you could literally switch between, and the mastering would fit perfectly, and it’s probably only 6-12db different.

        That type of thing just isn’t necessary. Or maybe there could be a different audio track. People have the bandwidth and storage, now, it’d be fine.