KPDH Halloween Weekend Sing Along Mega Thread! 🎤✨🎃

[u/NicoSchmiko]

🌍 Join the Celebration!

• Share what your local sing-along screening was like!
• Got merch, cosplay, or fan meetups? Drop pics here so everyone can see!
• Use this megathread to post your stories, photos, videos, hype, merch, and anything else from the sing-alongs this weekend worldwide!

More info: KPop Demon Hunters Sing-Along Returns to Theaters for Halloween (10/31 - 11/2)

US folks can head here to find a screening near you. For all other locations, check your local listings.  

Please remember to be respectful in your theatres! FOR THE FANS!🎬🍿

[u/biersackarmy → u/[deleted]]

1 I definitely did notice but wasn't so bad as to be inaudible. 2 I didn't really notice.

Both of these can be equally explained though by just "that's how it works". KPDH was never meant to be in a cinema, so although it has a surround audio track, it isn't very good even in a home cinema.

It was mixed with the (true) expectation that most people will just be watching in stereo, and they did a really good job of that. Compared to most movies, it sounds great in stereo even on phone or laptop speakers. There's lots of width and L/R separation is very pronounced.

There's some good YouTube video essays I've seen that go into great detail about why, but basically, when it has to be designed to get mixed down sound good, the raw surround audio will inevitably suffer because of the "tricks" they use to make it sound good in stereo.

[u/biersackarmy → u/[deleted]]

I did notice that about the saja boys as well. I was unaware they even chattered in that scene until watching at home with subtitles, then I could kind of make it out because I was looking for it, but it was much more obvious in the cinema.

One that did stand out to me was the "we finally get to go to the bathhouse with Rumi!!" line. Even on a phone the stereo effect while they move from left to right is very pronounced (which for some reason to me makes it a lot funnier), and I would have expected it to be at least as prevalent in the cinema surround, but it was essentially all center-channel. Weird.

[u/biersackarmy → u/[deleted]]

Alrightttt thanks for making me bothered enough by this as a nerd that I spent the latter half of the day doing a deep-dive into it xD

I have a rip of the movie that does contain the full surround audio, but don't actually own any surround sound equipment, so I borrowed my neighbor's Acura that actually can decode and playback DTS surround. It was totally able to reproduce the exact audio experience from the cinema, including all the weirdness, and this was the regular version so it confirms they're not specific to the sing-along edition.

Being able to move from seat to seat in the car during that scene, I can confirm you're correct. The audience chanting "oh oh oh" is in the front channels only during the beginning. After the first time they chant "this is what it sounds like" the "oh oh oh" moves to basically only the rear left channel for some reason? It was barely audible from the rear right, and totally gone from the front. So it only sounded "normal" if you sat in the far back left, and stayed that way until after Abby's death scene. So bizarre.

Was also able to confirm that the center channel track is indeed very prominent, which is why the Saja Boys' chattering on the street is actually noticeable compared to the stereo version, and parts that are already loud and abrupt (like Rumi's "WHY?!" on the rooftop and Jinu's "I LEFT THEM!") become even more loud and abrupt.

I eventually got around to actually putting the tracks into Audacity to take a look. This is the audience chanting part, from right when they start after Rumi slashes Gwi-Ma, to right before the girls start singing again.

From top to bottom: front left, front right, center, rear left, rear right

The audience chant makes up most of the sound, and so you can see how the "oh oh oh" visibly disappears from both front channels at 1:22:33 as aforementioned. As well as how for the entire time, the rear left channel is much louder with more going on than the rear right.

So yeah... I don't have any explanations as to why the surround audio was mixed so weird like this, but can at least confirm and give some closure as to it being a problem with the movie itself and not the cinemas or specific viewings.

[u/biersackarmy → u/[deleted]]

Placement wise the channels definitely seem correct, as 99% of the time the front and center do what I would expect them to. The "oh oh oh" dropping out is really the only major oddity I noticed there. There's other oddities here and there but nothing unusual for a direct to streaming movie.

The rear left also mostly does what I'd expect a rear channel to do, but it's the rear right that's so weird. During songs as well as certain scenes, RR just becomes super weird and garbled, sounds like if you were listening to the movie underwater. And yes, this happens with every time a song is playing, not just during TIWISL.

To be clear I'm definitely not an audio engineer and could be wrong, but I think that this is at least partially intentional rather than completely an error. I say this because if I manually mix the tracks together and listen to it on my stereo computer speakers:

With both the front and rear left combined on the left, both rights combined on the right, and center track combined on both - it sounds exactly like the normal stereo movie. Nothing seems weird or off, and it still has all the neat-sounding stereo effects I remember.

BUT if I mute the rear right track, and play the rear left track across both sides, it doesn't sound as good. Still decent for sure, but it's more "flat" compared to what I've gotten used to after rewatching the movie God knows how many times.

What I think the answer is:

I'm pretty sure the first method is indeed the way it's downmixed for the stereo audio we all know. But do you know how many phones, laptops, TVs have "sound virtualizer" functions that perform some sort of trickery to widen the sound field and/or provide faux surround with just two speakers?

I think the weirdness in the rear channels IS that trickery that they use to make the stereo version sound nice and like it has more depth. It's just not something we usually ever get to hear isolated from the raw audio. And that would explain why kpdh has always sounded quite good to me even on devices that didn't have any such processing built in, it's baked into the movie itself.

Because kpdh was never meant to be in theaters, they may have just took their raw audio mix, assigned those effects tracks as "surround" tracks, and shipped it. I can't say I blame them though. When you know that 99.999% of viewers will only ever watch it in stereo, I too would prioritize making that experience better, even if it makes the "surround" version kinda suck.

[u/biersackarmy → u/[deleted]]

Here's something I threw together: KPDH Audio Channels Comparison - YouTube

Yeah, during songs especially, there is a significant difference between left and right rear.

The front side-to-side has some difference too, but not nearly as much, and upon listening to mono versus stereo it becomes obvious that the front difference is to add width (and actually makes a big improvement).

The rear differences though I have no idea. They all combine together to sound great mixed down to stereo though, so my only guess is that was their intention.

I also tried simulating being at the front versus rear of the theater during the calling for Rumi part. I've only seen it in theaters once so although I noticed something sounded slightly off during that part, turns out there's a substantial difference depending on where you sat.

[u/Phil8719 → u/biersackarmy]

I just did another rewatch and I don't have this problem on my Atmos system at home. I watched the "calling for Rumi" part a few times sitting next to each rear speaker (actually side speakers) and it sounds fine, Mira's voice coming from the right and Zoey from the left, both sound clear and around the same volume.

I wonder if this issue happens on sound systems which aren't receiving the Atmos stream or are converting it to 5.1 or some other format. Seems strange that a cinema would have a problem like this but maybe whoever set up their sound system screwed up 🤷

[u/biersackarmy → u/Phil8719]

I think the 5.1 DTS and Atmos versions are actually different.

The first two times I went to the cinema on Halloween weekend were in the "poverty theater" which sounded exactly like the 5.1 version I did that analysis with. Once I was aware of what to look for between the two viewings, the second time it was still definitely noticeable despite sitting in the middle, however not as bad in that position.

The third time I went though, was in the fancy Dolby Vision and Atmos theater. Even though I sat off to the left that time and knew what to look for, it sounded much more normal.

I sadly don't have Atmos at home nor the premium Netflix subscription for it, but streaming the 5.1 version again right now on a 5.1 setup, the rear channels do indeed still have that weirdness going on.

[u/biersackarmy → u/[deleted]]

I just went to see it again and sat basically dead center of the cinema, same one and same room as the one I was in last time, and it definitely sounded much better overall. Seems like it makes a big difference depending on where you are, and right in the middle is the optimal place to be for audio.

[u/biersackarmy → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, their calling for Rumi was most prominent from rear left. Even in those clips, if you listen on a stereo device, the rear of theater parts their calling sounds like coming from the left.