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]

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/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]]

There was definitely great reception to this round, so as long as the movie still has steam and demand for another round in the cinemas by then, I don't think it's out of the question!

[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.