Party scene with dialogue and music playback

[Attila]

We are going to shoot a party scene with dialogue.

Party scenes with no music always look akward, because everybody is moving to their own rhythm.

I have heard of playing back music with a low hicut, so they can get rid of the bass rhythm in the post.

Did someone has experience with this kind of method? Where would you set the hicut?

I would think about 50hz, far away from the voices frequencies. But I there anything to be aware of?

[Philip Perkins]

Do you mean a "thumper" track played through a special low Hz speaker   ?     Short of giving some of the partiers earwigs and having the rest follow them this kind of thing often turns out to be the best solution.   The speaker is just a garden variety PA subwoofer.

https://www.trewaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/la_bgw_thumper_metronome.jpg

[Attila]

Is there any difference when using a special low hz speaker instead of filtering the music track in a daw a play it over a "normal" speaker? Shouldn´t it be theoretical the same?

[Jeff Wexler]

From my experience, filtering the music track is not the best way to go  --  even if you have steep enough filters, what you are left with is often complex low frequency notes (in a song) that may not actually represent the beat effectively. Establishing the BPM (beats per minute) of a given piece of music, even if you do this "manually" by just listening to the music, then dial this into an oscillator to produce a low frequency thump for the dancers to feel. Ideally you should use a click track (often available since it was probably used when the tracks were recorded) and let that click generate the thump. Understand that this thump may not be able to be completly removed in post (and there may be other sounds generated in the room by the energy of the thump) but it usually is not a problem when the music is put back in and masks the thump.

[JWichall]

Definitely what Jeff said, LF click track is a lot easier to remove / lessen and then anything that's left will be masked by the music track as long as it's edited matching the beat.

 

It's also much simpler for the picture editor rather than trying to match the music track all the time, just match the beat.

 

I'd think a normal speaker would be fine doing the filter in a DAW but any cheap sub would do as well.  

[Attila]

Thanks for your explanations. It a good Idea to do a click track to the coresponding BPM.  I will try it. 

[Ben B]

Just curious, what speaker are you guys using for thump track playback? What kind of sub or speaker.

When available i usually used the PA available in the club we were shooting at but when nothing is available i am using something like that https://www.ionaudio.com/explorer extreme-explorerextremexus. It served me well so far for quick playback (and spontaneous end of the day parties) as it is battery powered (it lasts forever), weather resistant, has a mini jack input and fits in my car with the rest of my gear. It doesn't produce very powerful bass though and when i have a big set with lots of extras to cover, it is a bit weak.

Is there a subwoofer, battery powered, that doesn't weight half a ton with practical input connector out there?