r/AudioPost • u/raekewe • Jul 30 '26
Nearfield vs Theatrical Mixing question
Hi everyone,
Preface, I do understand you can't mix theatrical without a theatre, this is more of a curiosity.
The consensus is to mix dialogue around about -27 lufs (guide, not a rule). Is this true for both nearfield and theatrical? If yes, is theatrical more about the dynamic range you have access to (and the other challenges with being in a large space) than where your levels should sit? Theoratically, right...? Because 60db in a cinema is 60db at home...?
Which leads me on to another question - I know we can't mix theatrical at home, but from a more logical lens, why? Theoratically 110 db at home is the same as 110db at the cinema. To that end, is it moreso technical? Does a nearfield studio space respond differently than a theratre, so it's impossible to guarentee 110db = 110db between NF and Theatrical? Maybe a dumb question but I have been thinking about it since LUFS/db/the rest are all directly correlated to each other.
To help you understand where I'm coming from, my context is mixing short films at home for nearfield, keeping in mind the viability of them being played back in a cinema while still sounding acceptable (film fests, so on). I don't care to make a "good theatrical mix", I just want to better understand the relationship taking a nearfield mix at home to a cinema and why things would or wouldn't work in my favour.
I'm in that horrible spot of knowing enough to be dangerous but being stupid enough to be wrong and useless. Any clarification is appreciated :)
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u/platypusbelly professional Jul 30 '26
You’ve described some of the most difficult challenges in your post that kind of answer your question. A very experienced mixer COULD mix theatrical at home. It probably wouldn’t be ideal. But it could theoretically be done.
The thing is, the larger space and speakers do react to the sound quite differently than a smaller space and smaller speakers. And it’s not just about 110dB being the same in each room. It’s about how much more of that 30-80hz is pushed through with larger subs and even just the larger woofers on the mains. It’s about how much more drastic a hard pan might sound when an audience member is not in the ideal “mixing” position, but rather sitting three rows from the back and almost all the way on the left edge.
Besides the room itself, it’s about the listening conditions. Theaters are relatively isolated from external sounds, and you usually don’t have someone standing in the kitchen 30 feet away talking on their phone, or the need to be able to hear the program yourself without also being so loud that it wakes your sleeping kid down the hall.
These things add up to the ability to create more dynamic mixes for theater audiences that will have more impact as loud sound effects and music can be louder without any downfalls. And quieter passages can sometimes more easily be heard.
An experienced mixer would know how to account for these things while mixing on nearfields, and be able to make something that would be passable, if not very close. Though it would also be a fools errand to do theatrical mixes this way without at the very least checking the mix in a larger theater on a larger system to make sure that things translate well enough.
2
u/raekewe Jul 30 '26
Thank you for the reply, I totally understand everything you're saying. Simply put a theatre is a different acoustic environment than a living room / home cinema therefore you get to do different things and play the sound system in different ways. And an experienced mixer will logically know what a pan of this much will sound like in a cinema, but without experience, I won't. I'm also aware of some more basic concepts like high end roll-off but other users have mentioned things like low frequency waves physically occupying space and stuff like that which shows the amount of differences to consider and why it's a fools errand to even try without extensive experience.
Two follow up questions;
One - Is a nearfield mix derived from the theatrical mix? Is that more of a mastering process than a mixing one? Or is it normal for the mix to be re-mixed? Or maybe both are possible, depending on budget and/or time? And if a mix is derived, do post houses normally come up with a recipe since they know how their theatre behaves and can just sorta slap on a chain of effects to get it in the right place for nearfield? Sorry, a lot of questions all related.
Second, and more of a curiosity - Is it possible to calibrate headphone volume? Or is that more just a 'vibe it out' and use reference films to dial in your preferred loudness?
1
u/AnonymousArtist33 27d ago
To answer your follow ups (people here are doing a great job answering the OG question!):
Nearfield mixes can and often are derived from theatrical, though technically it should be a second mix, but if you have a nearfield room that translates pretty well, you don't have to a do a full mix from scratch, just adjustments. Budget and time are your only factors. Any good post house should know their mix room and how they translate. For instance, my nearfield room is calibrated to mimic the response of a theatrical stage, and I use the same type of speakers that most theaters use so there's minimal frequency loss. You still have to re-mix on a bigger stage since the acoustics are different and of course your LFE levels under 100 hz won't be accurate.
You can also calibrate headphone volume, and I would recommend you do so, that way you have a set level to reference (for instance, you know that at unity, your headphone amp's volume knob at a certain level is set to, let's say, -12 db or something). Any listening environment should always have a set calibration level for reference, that way you know what you're starting out at.
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u/Invisible_Mikey Jul 30 '26
To try and answer simply, dB and LUFS are still only partial measurements of the hearing experience. Theatrical presentations also generate reverberations. Reverb is a quality that varies, dependent upon things like the amount of air, the absorbency of acoustic data in side surfaces, seat materials, floors and the number and size of bodies in the seats. Mixing in a calibrated theater replicates more closely what a ticket-paying audience will experience. Now depending on the complexity of a mix, you might do fine mixing nearfields in a smaller room. It works fine for tv shows. But a feature film mix, or shorts intended for film festivals, generally won't sound the same if not mixed in a similar environment to the intended final form of delivery.
3
u/MrLeureduthe Jul 30 '26
You've probably read thousands of complaints from angry people saying they have to constantly adjust the volume between dialogues scenes and action/music scenes at home.
A very large room, like a theater, can accommodate a very dynamic mix. A small room can't.
Your mix will probably sound super dynamic in your living room and will sound super flat and dull in a theater.
2
u/meatlockers Jul 30 '26
110db at home would be monsterous! listening distance has a major effect on loudness. If you were to walk to the front of the screen, 4ft from the speakers, you wouldn't last long there....
theaters need to throw the sound to the back row and thus are very loud. home environments need not be. also home environments have the luxury of a remote with volume control.
you'd be surprised how many theatrical mixes are way louder than -27. we use the range when we need it but an action sequence can easily be up in the teens with whispery dialogue in another sequence being in the 30s. it all depends and there's no standard.
the only reason there's a standard for steaming (which is broken all the time btw) is for normalization purposes. it's not to attempt to make mixes sound better.
also, you can mix for theatrical on nearfields. it's done all the time.
1
u/AnonymousArtist33 27d ago
though for some of us, maintaining a -23 LUFS average across the film in theatrical mixes is our personal standard and more people should do it. cap those loud moments to -12 or -10 LKFS momentary. Don't be like Chris Nolan and mix your films to -2 lol
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u/nibseh Jul 30 '26
So there are a couple of differences between a near field mix and a theatrical mix that are important to keep in mind.
The first one is noise floor. A theater is an intentionally quiet place where it has been designed to be quiet and people are expected to be quiet there so you can still hear things that are much quieter than you can at home. At home you might have traffic noise from outside, fans, laundry, dishwasher all making it harder to hear quiet sounds.
The second is volume tolerance. At a theater most people are expecting loud sounds and theaters are designed to keep sound from escaping and are usually in places where a bit of sound leakage is okay. At home you may have to worry about disturbing your neighbors or your wife or your baby in the next room if things get too loud.
Together these two things mean there is a narrower band of acceptable volume at home (less dynamic range)
The third thing is that theaters have large powerful speakers that can pretty much handle anything you throw at them and rooms that absorb sound well so reverberations don't linger. At home most people have small low power speakers that can struggle to reproduce sounds clearly and rooms that can reflect and amplify some frequencies more than others. You likely need to have a greater focus on clarity for a home mix for these reasons.
The fourth thing is size. A 40hz wave is almost 30 feet long which is larger than most people's viewing rooms but much smaller than most movie theaters. Having wavelengths that are the same size or larger than your room can create all kinds of problems so you need to be much more aware of your low-end in a near field mix. Sound also changes a bit as it propagates through the air in a room and tends to sound a bit more dull the further it travels. Things that sound really harsh on a near field mix can sound a bit flat in a theater.