Is there a way to enhance a lfe channel?

[yoda313]

Ok here's what I wanted to do. In the special edition Star Wars dvds some scenes weren't mixed quite the way I wanted them. The lightsabers in RETURN OF THE JEDI didn't have the bass that a lot of the other movies had.

So I thought I'd go and demux the ac3 and use besweet to get the six mono wavs and boost the lfe file. So I go ahead and load the lfe.wav file into an audio editor and - ALMOST NOTHING IS THERE! There's one little jump in the spectrum and the rest of the 3 min clip is empty!!!

Is there anyway to match up a faked lfe file to the existing front left and front right channels so as to create a "seudo" sub channel???? Or in other words - how do I make something out of nothing??? (It is the 5.1 track because there is a bit of the sub channel there just not during the lightsaber action).

Any suggestions would be useful. Thanks

[yoda313]

I had an idea. I could clone the impact points of the saber duels and copy and paste them into the lfe file. That way the impact would match equally and be in synch.

Would that work??? I've got a Red Wings game to watch right now so I'll try this later. Thanks for any tips.

[Noahtuck]

Well, if you disect alot/most/all movie's audio tracks there is pretty much almost nothing on the LFE channel when looking at a graph of the audio, because it is just all the lowest freq's.
If you listen to the LFE channel alone it's usually just low rumbles and "vibrations" so to speak for the feel.

1st, if you want it to sound better or louder to feel it, first thing i would do is buy a better self powered subwoofer

2nd, you can, as i have done it a few times with commercial dvd's messing around and from my own mixes, boosted the LFE channel with Adobe Audition.
But for freeware, i have no idea as there are very few programs i ever use that are freeware for such task's.

[yoda313]

Thanks noah

I'm not really interested in buying software to do this

But as for the graph edit shouldn't it show anything thats in the mono wav? I tried boosting it more than a 100% but only the one blip appeared.

Anyway I was thinking of taking lightsaber hits from other episodes and mixing it in with Jedi. It might work and it might not.

Thanks for the suggestions (and actually my 50 watt Sony powered subwoofer is plenty powerful for my needs - though someday I'll upgrade to a 100 watt model )

[Noahtuck]

Thanks for the suggestions (and actually my 50 watt Sony powered subwoofer is plenty powerful for my needs - though someday I'll upgrade to a 100 watt model )

Oh dude!!!! you would be amazed at what a larger sub and amp would do even at lower volumes!!
I've been fighting off going to a 15" at 300watts RMS, i was looking at some that were up to 500watts RMS, from my 12" 150watt in my living room.
Larger subs will produce lower freq's.

And for the graph showing something, yeah.
Are you using that graph your link points to ?

The only graph i use are the ones that show each mono wav in Adobe Audition.

I had some screen shot's of some things i was doing before, i'll have to see if i still have them to show you what they look like with all 6 channels at once.

P.S.
Which starwars are you trying to do ?
I can rip the audio tracks and open them all in Adobe Audition and you can see what they all look like side by side.

[greymalkin]

it's possible that the lightsaber hits are actually lower on this film and your sub fizzles out before those frequencies. a little 8" sub can't put out the same as a 10-12"...you need more power and cone area!

[mikiem]

If you want to play around in Vegas, it'll create an LFE track from stereo or surround. Merge this with your existing LFE?

[yoda313]

If you want to play around in Vegas, it'll create an LFE track from stereo or surround. Merge this with your existing LFE?

Thanks but I don't have Vegas. And I'm not planning on buying software for this. In the end I can live with it if I can't do it easily.

[Noahtuck]

Okay,
Here is the screen shot if the entire soundtrack from ROTJ S.E.



Here is the screen shot of just chapter 39



The LFE channel is definately flat in that chapter and when i play it back through my PC system it is way banging!!

But when i change to diff. channels, muting ones i don't want to hear, there is alot of bass being channeled from the center channel, prob. to give more depth and volume to the center channel to coincide with what is happening on the screen.
So some of the bass from other channels must also be getting redirected to the subwoofer.

As i said before,

you would be amazed at what a larger sub and amp would do even at lower volumes!!

Larger subs will produce lower freq's.

Even if you boost or put more bass in an LFE channel to your subwoofer, i don't think it will matter a whole lot, The subwoofer will only reproduce down to the freq it is capable of no matter what you pump into it.

I play just that chapter on my PC system and it's booming!!
But i have a 12" 188w RMS sub and i can FEEL the rumbles and booms and slams during that short clip.

[virendra]

If you have latest version of Nero 7 , it has audio editor which generates auto lfe from front left track. you can then enhance it as you like

hope this is useful to you

[yoda313]

The LFE channel is definately flat in that chapter and when i play it back through my PC system it is way banging

Thanks for posting that You see I wasn't imagining it

Are you using a eax surround field to boost the light lfe track on that chapter???

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@virendra - Thanks. Don't have nero though. Someday I might buy it. But right now I think I'll just live with the light bass in JEDI.

Thanks everyone.