For instance, Assassin’s Creed Origins had subtitles turned off by default and 60% of players turned them on.
Poor sound mixing is exactly why I watch most things with subs by default now. I got sick of constantly having to turn the volume up to hear dialogue and then quickly back down to avoid massive explosions etc.
And I feel this is an escalating problem. Sound mixing is generally horrible in both games and movies/TV. Unless you blow out your speakers during the higher peaks, you’ve got no chance of hearing dialogue.
Does anyone have any clue to why this is such a well-spread phenomenon? Why is it like this? I mean, I get it (kinda) at a cinema, but I think it’s way overplayed there as well.
For films, you have idiots like Christopher Nolan who’s head is so far up his own ass he can probably see daylight. He purposefully mixes the audio poorly so nobody can hear anything, and likes it that way because … something something something immersion artsy bullshit. I couldn’t even finish watching Tenet, we turned it off halfway through because we had zero clue what was going on, and I will refuse to ever watch another Nolan film after that.
For games, I think it’s just poor mixing, I doubt they mean to do it on purpose. They just don’t invest in the proper audio people.
I honestly am a huge Nolan fan but could not agree more with his audio lately. I was really frustrated in the theater during Dunkirk trying to figure out what the heck Tom Hardy was saying. Tenet, at times, was also pretty bad. I still really liked both movies, but they would have been better experiences if I could have not dedicated so many resources to hear a word in a garbled mess of voice.
Interesting, I thought the sound mixing in films was poor because it was designed for cinema viewing and then not optimised for home setups. But I don’t watch many movies on the big screen anymore. I thought at least some people were enjoying good quality mixing haha
Part of it is they are mixed in professional environments (studios) for professional environments (cinema).
Part of it is they can’t mix for someone with a 10 year old tv using its built in speakers in a shared living room with street noise, 15 feet from the sofa and a brand new TV through a sound bar in a rural mansion 8 feet from the sofa, and someone using airpods over Bluetooth.
Plus people tend to listen to things at a volume similar to conversational level, but in a cinema you listen to things at a volume that would be considered impolite to your neighbors if you did it in an apartment block.
Finally, sound engineers are artists and dynamics (louder and quieter parts) are part of their craft. Actors are artists and their vocal performances also have dynamics.
A question to ask yourself is have you considered more actively participating in the sound delivery methods of your media? I’m not here to say “all people are watching TV wrong!” but I would ask if most people have even thought carefully about their sound delivery choices, their own EQ settings in their TV, how well tuned their environment is for active listening, and if they just need to turn their volume up?
I appreciate not everyone can blaze the sound on max — but if you do have to sacrifice some volume, maybe part of that tradeoff is clarity of dialogue?
You say this like there aren’t plenty of movies and shows that don’t have this problem at all, even YouTubers generally knock this out of the park.
Dialogue is one of the only things that should always be clear, it exists to tell the story and missing critical parts of that because they can’t be assed to make sure it sounds half decent in more than one specific environment using one specific audio technology is not something I’m willing to support.
Even in theaters, however, the sound mixing in Tenet was way off. And that may be bad setups at the theaters, but the fact that the complaint was so widespread indicates that the blame likely rests elsewhere.
Nolan is just partially deaf imo. Dynamic Range is nice and especially for the 5.1 mix it’s great. Still dialogue should be understandable and at least be mostly mixed to the center channel so I can boost it if I want.
Also the 2.1 mix needs to focus on dialogue. No one who watches in 2.1 cares for the dynamic range and subbass stuff imho.
It seems tv audio engineers expect everyone to have a high end theater speaker setup: that’s the only way to be able to hear it, apart from to use headphones, which is cheaper, but it’s not a great solution. You’d think apps like netflix and Disney plus would be able to include a setting like video games that selects a different audio mix, or separate tracks for dialogue and sfx each with thier own volume slider.
This is why I think dynamic range compression should be a standard feature for TVs, phones, stereos, PCs and other consumer devices that output audio. Something to even out quiet dialogue and loud explosions would be a godsend for movie watchers everywhere.
I know Windows has a compressor of sorts built in, the audio equalization feature, and I wish there were a good equivalent for this on Linux.
Truth be told, with my auditory processing issues, I’d probably still be using subtitles in tandem with compression/equalization if it were an option. BUT, it’d still be nice to have for watching things late at night without waking other people up.
I know Windows has a compressor of sorts built in, the audio equalization feature, and I wish there were a good equivalent for this on Linux.
Install easyeffects if it’s not installed by default. You can have all kinds of audio processing for both output and input
I just encountered that when playing Fallout 76 for the first time. When I first started up the game everything was so loud so I turned it down to what I thought would be a good level. But when I played a holotape in a terminal it was so quiet AND even when I had subtitles turned on for some reason they didn’t appear :/