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This is Episode 394 of Altered Geek! Join Steve Megatron, and TFG1Mike as they discuss how bad dialogue has gotten in films and television shows, plus just how bad the mixing of things has become, all this and more! Only on Altered Geek!
Show Notes:
- The SlashFilm Article that got us talking about this, can be found HERE!
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Interesting topic. I believe there are a lot of factors: production, sound design, sound equipment, listening environment, and a person’s hearing, as well as seating position. I seem to recall I heard that sound designers mix for numerous environments for the releases in theaters, home, and streaming. I got the sense that it was a challenge. They take a mix intended for a commercial movie theater and try and mix it for a good experience in various environments on a broad range of equipment. That’s a hefty job when you think about all of the various combinations there could be.
There is a lot I don’t know about mixing and how systems output the various mixes to a smaller system. I thought the sounds in the various channels all got shoved into the channels available. So, a 7.1 to a 2.1 would stuff sounds from the other five channels into the two stereo channels. But, someone was recently saying that the sounds may not get played at all. For all I know it may depend on the receiver, TV, or whatever is processing the mix. Again, I am just not sure.
But the point I wanted to make is that when you have only a stereo system or TV speakers, you’re likely to have a bad experience. Not sure if that is your case or not. But in my experience, it helps to have a system that can separate out some of the channels into separate speakers. Not everyone can afford that, which I understand. But even decent sound bars are not that expensive nowadays. The TV speakers in many TVs today are an afterthought. Unless you’re buying a high-end TV, you’re not getting good sound quality. Even in the high-end TVs, the speakers in a thin-profile TV can only do so much and a relatively modest sound bar can do better.
When we grew up, we only had mono. Stereo didn’t become a thing until the early to mid-80s. But now we have a lot of surround sound and immersive sound mixes. So, if you don’t have those speakers in your set up, or at least a set up with a dedicated center channel, what are you going to hear? I can see that being why dialogue gets drowned out. Yes, some mixes are better than others, but I think it has a lot to do with the adoption of surround/immersive sound mixes where many people still watch content on systems like they did when we had mono or stereo.
Coincidentally, this article was suggested to me today, which backs up what I said and more.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-deal-with-movies-that-bounce-from-too-quiet-to-too-loud?utm_source=pocket-newtab