Members PBBPaul Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 I have an extra Alesis Nanocomp and would like to use it to balance out the levels in movies and TV commercials. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beck Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PBBPaul Posted November 7, 2010 Author Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 I agree with you completely but since it may take some time to find the guy responsible, I'll have to mess around a bit with the comp on the TV's output. I just don't know if it will mess up the surround. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Sayers Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 the trouble is that when you have compensated for the low levels the high levels will pump and sound awful. You really need a leveller, not a compressor - something that senses the level is low and retrieves it. All our TV channels have one on their transmitter anyway so I don't see the need for one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Why not just use a gate, so the commercials get silenced completely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Mute button. Almost every remote has one. When I'm at other people's houses and put in the uncomfortable position of watching them watch television, I'm always shocked at how few people make use of that most excellent invention. (My own introduction to the mute button was a remote switch that my grandfather installed on his home made entertainment center -- he was also the first person I knew with an FM radio, almost unheard of in American homes in the 50s and mostly used for sending in commercial-less program streams to restaurants -- it was great because you could typically get the AM program, sans commercials and announcers. Anyhow, my grandfather had a simple audio kill switch rigged up (it was wired but it was better than commercials) and whoever had the switch was expected to nuke 'em. The grandkids would fight for the honor. (A simpler time, to be sure.) A few years later, when I was getting into electronics in order to build my first stereo, I conned my dad into letting me put such a switch in our own TV rig -- and impressed my grandfather with the addition of an 8 ohm pad that was switched in when the speaker was switched out.) But, of course, there are times you can't get to the remote before the commercial comes blasting out or you get blindsided (I'm sure I'm not the only one who occasionally gets distracted from his TV watching by the internet). FWIW, my old ~c 1992 Panasonic TV had a program compression/limiter that worked OK on 'normal' TV and commercials but was often overwhelmed by the greedy rush to pack as high an RMS into the audio track as possible. (And that venerable machine died a couple years back -- just couldn't bring itself to face end of the analog TV era, I guess. It was to the month.) Now, what I have used compressors on are some of the old MST3K shows (if there's anyone not familiar, they showed old, mostly horror/sci fi movies with a continual rag track provided by a human an two puppet 'robots'). A couple of them have the snarky comment track way too loud, so that you can only just barely hear the original audio -- so you can't even get the jokes. (These are typically off of YouTube or Google Video so I figure it's possible the person who transcribed them from the original broadcast messed up.) In that case, though, I used a software compressor since I didn't feel like running a bunch of cables around. I also threw in some EQ to help clarify the track, as well. But, happily, that's seldom necessary. I've also used compression and extra EQ a couple times watching movies from the 30s with really messed up soundtracks (some of the stuff out of the UK -- like some of the pre-Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies -- is pretty well unlistenable without serious work -- and even then it's tough). In some cases, these are actually restored movies -- but, you know, so it's kind of weird, you've got this nice, vivid black and white strike of the print coupled with a soundtrack where the dialog is lost in noise. OTOH, maybe they were right to wait. Some of the audio restoration of early 30s and very late 20s soundies that came out in the 90s were absurd -- with extreme gating that would result in city scenes with traffic flowing all around but dead silence on the soundtrack and then, when someone talks, all of a sudden, you've got them and a blast of traffic noise followed by silence when they're done. It's really insulting. How could someone who calls himself a professional do something like that to the product of so many real professionals' work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Why not just use a gate, so the commercials get silenced completely?Most gates are typically set up to trigger when the sound falls below a certain point, of course. But many gates can certainly be set to fire when the sound gets above a certain level (such an arrangement used as a sort of circuit-breaker type fail-safe in the past to protect downstream gear from wild overs). The problem would be that not all commercials are consistently louder than the program material. But you could use a less extreme solution, expansion (negative compression), so that levels over a certain level (like the commercials at CBS.com which are typically 18 dB RMS over the Perry Mason reruns I watch there -- 4x as loud) would be pushed way down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members D Charles Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 I've got one of those little Blue Max compressors on the TV audio before it hits my stereo. It's actually pretty useful. MSNBC is WAY louder than CNN so I usually go back and forth between them to adjust it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PBBPaul Posted November 7, 2010 Author Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Thank you! I think I'll try messing with it this week. It struck me last night when the kids were watching a Harry Potter movie and the effects were so incredibly loud compared to the dialog. They cranked it to hear but when the blasts would come, I thought the speakers would blow. I usually just mute the TV ads when I'm watching commercial TV so that doesn't matter as much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PermaNoobie Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Many TVs and even comcast digi cable boxes (they have 3-4 compression levels you can set) have various dynamics features in their audio set up sections.Phillips used to call their "TV commercial" limiter "smart sound" but other manus have had similar things (you might have to dig in the menus a little) Often, I find myself wanting expansion if Im running the audio through a home theatre system and depending on the type of programming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Johnny-Boy Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 What irritates me is when a show switches to a commercial. Commercials are usually at peak level and the blast usually wakes me up from the boring TV shows. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 What irritates me is when a show switches to a commercial. Commercials are usually at peak level and the blast usually wakes me up from the boring TV shows. John Advertisers were among the early users of 'squash' compression, along with radio broadcasters (who could be fined for going over their licensed power limits but wanted to have the loudest, most compelling signal possible), and the makers of pop/rock 45 singles (the latter for reasons precisely parallel to the competition to have the loudest song in the portable player, they wanted to have the loudest, most compelling single in the juke box or on the RCA-licensed 45 changer). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bookumdano2 Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Why watch tv when you could be creating music ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Mute button. Almost every remote has one. QUOTE] Yeah but kids don't have one. And in our house, when the ads come up and I'd hit the mute, I'd get a loud chorus of "TURN IT BACK ON! THIS IS A COOL AD!!" Sometime in the 80s, advertising became art/entertainment for lots of kids...why else do they not mind wearing shirts with advertising all the time? nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Philter Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 DVR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Johnny-Boy Posted November 7, 2010 Members Share Posted November 7, 2010 Why watch tv when you could be creating music ? I like to keep in touch with my competition. And eat a snack at the same time. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted November 8, 2010 Members Share Posted November 8, 2010 Fletcher told me that he uses an FMR compressor on his TV, and that it works great. I've thought about doing this...seems like a great idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jimbroni Posted November 8, 2010 Members Share Posted November 8, 2010 hmm. Interesting idea. But to me. Based on some of the comments my 2 cents are compressing or limiting comercials to drop volume seems like a bad plan. Mainly because comercials are already over limited and compressed. Compressing would then only make the problem worse. Seems to me you'd end up with lower overall volume on everything and then when loud parts hit they get distorted. Though the reverse gate idea might be cool. So that leaves me with. Forget the comercials. DVR and ff thru them or mute like blue sez. Instead think about compressing modern movies that have gigantic explosions and very soft dialog so that your not a volume jockey. The problem then becomes, if you're concerned about this odds are you have an interest in audio. Meaning you're picky. So you probably have some surround system, with an HD tv of some sort meaning your audio output is probably via HDMI or lightpipe. Which means you'd need a compressor with digital input. Not many people have analog surround. I do, but I run all my tv thru my pc and have six analog outs to run my surround. Most people won't have that. So what am I saying I dunno. I guess I've pondering doing this, but I'd need at least 4 channels of compression to do what I'd like. Sub, center, R and L. Rears probably don't need it. Just seems like alot of overhead to watch a show. If you have a surround system, using a stereo compressor on I assuming the front right and left, wouldn't give much benefit IMO. Honestly I wonder if you'd get more bang for your buck putting a mono comp on the subwoofer. Those dudes are the biggest culprit anyway. The ctr and sub put out alot of those explosive in your face sounds. The stereo fronts and rears often just create the space backdrops and localization. So I think if you have a stereo comp, I'd try compressing the sub and center channel, and leaving the fronts alone. Though I think it would cool to try a 4 channel compressor, just haven't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beck Posted November 8, 2010 Members Share Posted November 8, 2010 On the other hand sometimes I sit through boring TV shows just so I can see my favorite Geico commercials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted November 9, 2010 Members Share Posted November 9, 2010 Some of the people I've spoken to don't use a compressor for commercials so much as for viewing movies, which can be extremely dynamic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted November 9, 2010 Members Share Posted November 9, 2010 Some of the people I've spoken to don't use a compressor for commercials so much as for viewing movies, which can be extremely dynamic. And often dynamic for less-than-justifiable reasons, like simply cutting to an outdoor driving scene after a close, indoor dialog scene. With some movies I actually resort to subtitles in English so I can still follow the dialog when I turn the volume down enough so the big-audio-boost moments don't take the plaster down. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PBBPaul Posted November 11, 2010 Author Members Share Posted November 11, 2010 Some of the people I've spoken to don't use a compressor for commercials so much as for viewing movies, which can be extremely dynamic. This would be my use. They go for so much impact in the loud scenes but the dialog gets lost when I turn it down. If I hook it to the TV's output, it shouldn't mess up the surround encoding should it? I'll have to experiment when I have some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted November 12, 2010 Members Share Posted November 12, 2010 I like to run my TV's audio through Craig's QUADRAFUZZ followed by a 1970's, whooshing, SMALL STONE phase shifter. It helps me derive more meaning and enjoyment from my TV shows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted November 12, 2010 Members Share Posted November 12, 2010 And still compresses the sound. I applaud your sonic creativity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PBBPaul Posted November 12, 2010 Author Members Share Posted November 12, 2010 I like to run my TV's audio through Craig's QUADRAFUZZ followed by a 1970's, whooshing, SMALL STONE phase shifter. It helps me derive more meaning and enjoyment from my TV shows. A vast improvement to most of the programming, I'm sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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