How to mix Leq(m) for cinema

Nugen's VisLM meter:

-paul.

@produceNewMedia

The reason that you won't find it is that Dolby SR - 82dB Leq(m) isn't a mix level at all - it's a requirement that you are likely to have some difficulty in meeting, because it specifies that the mix must be done on a Dolby-calibrated monitoring systen with the room volume set to 82dB. The idea is that if it's confortable for you when you mix at that level, then it will be fine in the cinema. In a way, that's rather better than many of the so-called 'standards' that people require you to mix to, IMHO.

There is apparently a cheat's way of getting your monitoring set to a good approximation to this, but it's going to require you to borrow a calibrated SPL meter. You put some pink noise at -20dB (ref 0dB) into your session. You mute all the speakers individually and whilst playing back the tone, set the level of each speaker so that the SPL meter reads 82dB (C weighted) at your monitoring position when running just that one. Repeat for all the other monitors.

So to do this, you set the level on your monitor controller to a fixed repeatable point, and then you need individual level controls for each speaker that you can individually tweak. And, as I mentioned, a calibrated SPL meter. And because it's a monitoring requirement, there's no getting around it...