We all know the modern complaint: movie sound sucks now unless you have a high-end sound system. Frantically turning down the volume after turning it up to hear the dialogue only to need to turn it up again can be frustrating. Now, this doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but why not have a “Volume A” and “Volume B” you can easily set and toggle between with the simple press of a button?
Here is my preferred solution that will never happen:
Divide all media audio into separate tracks for dialogue, music, sfx, etc., and let the users control the volume of each separately. To avoid having an easily ripped pure music track, perhaps premix the other tracks in at 10% or so (in a logarithmic scale) and make that the minimum volume of any track other than music.
My problem with that is how far can you go? Will artist integrity shatter? Will people mod Thomas the train on movies? Will we get those god awfull billion page settings?
I guess I’m not understanding your concerns. People with artistic skill can already do anything they want to any audio they want. (Note: that was Way before all this AI junk existed) And I don’t really see how this affects that much.
As for settings, I’m thinking three/four sliders. Much less than a graphic equalizer. It’s just volume control.
How loud specific things are in comparison to other sounds is one of the things that a director dictates to set the mood for their movie. We all agree that it’s gone a bit far with most things nowadays, but having something be piercingly loud or eerily quiet can be used really well, and if everyone from Tommy Teenager to Granny Gertrude can alter these settings with a TV remote and zero knowledge on maybe what they’re even doing (“I thought I was changing the volume and now the people don’t talk anymore!”) it would greatly diminish the director’s ability to control that.