Could you hear the Riff tonight @ Godzilla?

[Miku Fan]

The sound was terrible. Very disappointed as both a Kickstarter backer and as a paying customer of the theater. I was mostly bored and almost walked out. It wasn't RiffTrax. It was Godzilla with Matthew Broderick with some guys mumbling. I believe I heard about 1/3 of the commentary and most of that was from Kevin who seemed to be shouting. Mike and Bill. Nothing unless the movie was silent.

I have an $80 audio plugin that allows me to 'duck' the movie sound when I mix their commentary with videos. They need to correctly utilize the same technology. Both Live and in their streaming videos (which generally have the same problem to a much lesser extent).

From the sound of things the audio problem was on theaters' end and not on the Rifftrax end.  They more or less *have* worked out the audio issues and any ducking on their part.  Theaters, however, likely have their sound systems calibrated for showing a movie, not a movie with commentary over it.  So when you get an action movie like this, that secondary audio track is drowned out by the movie's track.  Theaters need to better calibrate their sound systems for this type of event and hopefully going forward Fanthom will put the pressure on them to do so.

Maybe they could reduce their slideshow to 20 minutes, and spend 10 minutes sending audio signals to the theater, so the theater can calibrate the sound system.

[Darth Geek]

It doesn't even make sense to me why the individual theaters would have so much control over the different sound levels. They don't for regular movies.

[Miku Fan]

It doesn't even make sense to me why the individual theaters would have so much control over the different sound levels. They don't for regular movies.

Darth, I have no idea how this works.  As Servo would say, "I'm just blue-skying."  I read an apology from Rifftrax on their Tweeter feed (here at Rffitrax.com) saying they were working with Fathom Events to fix this issue.    They know a lot of people were unhappy, and want to make it right. I hope they succeed!

[Miku Fan]

Pasted Tweet: Since Starship Troopers, we've isolated the guys' audio and put them into the front-center channel. This is supposed to make them much clearer and easier to hear. However it appears there may have been other issues outside of our control that led to a bunch of theaters having some audio trouble - we're investigating the actual cause.

(The audio coming from the house to the satellite truck was great but the theaters' audio was not.) We deeply apologize and will work with Fathom Events to make additional fixes to ensure better audio going forward.

13 · August 15 at 7:49am
RiffTrax Also, please fill out the survey at TellFathom.com. We will work with Fathom to get things fixed. Thank you!

[Trekker4747]

It doesn't even make sense to me why the individual theaters would have so much control over the different sound levels. They don't for regular movies.

Why wouldn't the theater have control over the volume levels of their own sound system?  Different movies and situations require different levels of sound.  What I don't get is why the center channel would be set so low considering that's the channel dialogue usually comes through which, in any movie, is pretty important.

I'm going to the encore tomorrow night, I hope my local theater got the memo and do a better job this time around.

[Miku Fan]

It doesn't even make sense to me why the individual theaters would have so much control over the different sound levels. They don't for regular movies.

Why wouldn't the theater have control over the volume levels of their own sound system?  Different movies and situations require different levels of sound.  What I don't get is why the center channel would be set so low considering that's the channel dialogue usually comes through which, in any movie, is pretty important.

I'm going to the encore tomorrow night, I hope my local theater got the memo and do a better job this time around.

Damn.  Between you and Darth, I don't know what to think!  Anyway, going to the encore, myself.  Will reprot on the sound.

[Darth Geek]

It doesn't even make sense to me why the individual theaters would have so much control over the different sound levels. They don't for regular movies.

Why wouldn't the theater have control over the volume levels of their own sound system?  Different movies and situations require different levels of sound. 

That is the sound editor's responsibility.

[Miku Fan]

I don't go to a lot of movies.  Apart from Rifftrax Live, I've only been to one, since the LOTR travesty.

But, aren't most movies streamed these days? Are they phasing out film?  If so, wouldn't this sound issue be a common issue? 

The only non-Rifftrax movie I've seen in theater since LOTR travesty was an anime. A Ghibli anime!  It was digitized and streamed.  It was pixilated and even lagged.  That was probably at least 3 years ago.

Streaming is a great idea, especially for live events.  I saw the live stream of Monty Python a few weeks back.  There were a couple of small sound glitches, noticeable, but not enough to bother me.

If streaming IS the norm, they (whomever they are) need to set an industry standard, or teach the theater staff how to adjust the volume properly.

[Trekker4747]

Regardless of how they're getting the  movie they still have volume knob(s) on their speakers/sound system. Knobs that can be adjusted for the situation regardless of what the distributor wants.

[Nobody]

I was bummed I couldn't see it.  Now, not so much.

I'll be able to get a nice, audible riff on DVD when the MP3 comes out.  $75 for two mp3's, a bunch of shorts and a t-shirt seems pretty pricey, but I'm pretty sure it's the only way we are going to get mp3's of big name movies now.

[Darth Geek]

I was bummed I couldn't see it.  Now, not so much.

I'll be able to get a nice, audible riff on DVD when the MP3 comes out.  $75 for two mp3's, a bunch of shorts and a t-shirt seems pretty pricey, but I'm pretty sure it's the only way we are going to get mp3's of big name movies now.

I was able to hear all of the riffs in the Rifftrax Live show in our theater. Eh, just pay $2.99 for the Quiptracks version. It's much better.

[Nobody]

I was bummed I couldn't see it.  Now, not so much.

I'll be able to get a nice, audible riff on DVD when the MP3 comes out.  $75 for two mp3's, a bunch of shorts and a t-shirt seems pretty pricey, but I'm pretty sure it's the only way we are going to get mp3's of big name movies now.

I was able to hear all of the riffs in the Rifftrax Live show in our theater. Eh, just pay $2.99 for the Quiptracks version. It's much better.

Well, I already dropped the Kickstarter money a couple months ago.  I'll probably get the iRiff when I the guys' mp3 becomes available.

[Miku Fan]

Leaving in a bit to attend the rebroadcast of Godzilla.  Hoping the sound works properly.  I'll reprot my findings.

[Trekker4747]

Ditto here.

[Sideswipe]

Why does it sound like the title of this thread should be a Weird Al parody song...