WARNING! THIS MAY DAMAGE YOUR EARS!

Excerpt from an interview with re-recording mixer Les Fresholtz CAS by David M Weishaar CAS on the occasion of his presentation with the CAS Career Achievement Award, first published in the Journal of the US Cinema Audio Society in May 1995.

DW: I went to a theatre to see Jurassic Park in digital. I experienced what I consider to be dangerously high levels (dBs) of sound. I wonder, where are we going with this? It was painfully loud. This sort of playback level worries me a bit. What are we re-recording mixers doing to ourselves on a daily basis? Since our livelihood requires good hearing, this should be a concern to all of us (mixers and editors).

LF: It worries a lot of people. We are going way beyond necessary SPL (sound pressure level). Most of the stages in town, and I am sure they are going to feel the need to do this in here, are going to have enough monitor amp power to practically blow the consoles back. Now they (producers and directors) are asking for more and more level because they know about these capabilities. It is getting a little dangerous (for us that is). Also, with the digital release format you do not have to worry about optical compression or clash. Now you can really hurt peoples hearing. I remember people complaining at the Academy when we were running 70mm mag tracks, that it was too loud. They really should have meetings on this level situation and look at governing this a little better.

DW: Are we going to set some sort of governor on the level of the final digital release?

LF: I believe so. Some of the mixers here just finished a fairly loud show with Stallone in it. It had nothing but explosions. They would do a reel and then have to walk out and take enough of a breather for their hearing to decompress. Give their ears a rest. Because they, the clients, were calling for louder sound. More, more. With our technology today, and the size of our power amps, we can deliver.

DW: Yes I guess in the past we had our technological limitations to keep us from going overboard.

LF: Yeah, you'd say you had limitations, it's going to get squashed or something like that.

DW: Any last thoughts, Les?

LF: Well yeah, hopefully we will all do something about this before someone says to you 'Hey, can you pull those crickets down a little....?' and you think, 'What crickets?'.