Surround Sound?

[ampassasinbirmingham]

Going into an age where technology domonates, with sound going further and further, when do think the time will come that music will have to start being produced in surround sound?

[DJZeMig_L]

First U need surround PA in cluns ;)

If they lead we'll follow 4 sure!

Z

[ampassasinbirmingham]

do you think its a long way off?

what about more abient pieces?

[audioinjection]

some music is already being mixed in surround, like live concerts and stuff on dvd, but not too many ppl have a decent surround sound system, so there isn't a big market for it yet.

[detfella]

imagine a club with surround sound :love: - would def make my head spin

[DJZeMig_L]

Most concerts have Front Left & right ... band.... back (left & right) =crowd!? :(


for in house hearing, most electronic music can probably be very interesting in surround :)

Z

[audioinjection]

concerts dont mix in surround, the back speakers are just for the people way in the back that cant hear the front, and usually the rear speakers are in delay so it wont sound like an echo

[DJZeMig_L]

Sorry I didn't explain myself properly.. most DVDs with 5.1 have the bad playing in the front + front Lef+ front Right speakers, while using the back for the sound of the crowd.

In a live concert they use the delay PA towers like u mentioned to compensate for the er.... delay ! :)

Z

[ampassasinbirmingham]

read about this topic thats y i started it. It says many of the big comercial studio's are now releasing shit in 5.1.

One of the studio's even invested into the gear to do it in 1997.

Its a fact it will need to happen one day.

It could be amazing in a club. But would this knock records out for sure?

[Barely Human]

Well, yeah in the sense of that you wont get 5.1 on a vinyl. But then again, you could get final scratch to handle 5.1 no problem.

[jake]

didnt richie try to do some kinda surround sound panning thing for a bit?

[Antinoise]

Surround really only works for a controlled audience environment and placing. (Like a theater). Its all about the center listener. Most club type music.. While in stereo is actually closer to mono (with the odd sound using the stereo channels) which works best for an even distributed sound throughout.

There are a few breaks dj's doing some incrediable 5.1 s**t.. but they only play it in properly set up performance areas.

[DJZeMig_L]

"....Surround has been slow to take off, not least because of the bewildering array of different formats, and because there's no affordable way of making playable surround DVDs at the moment. My feeling is that, for the project studio owner, burning video DVDs to carry the audio encoded in the data-compressed AC3 format is the best option, and will ensure universal compatibility. We're planning a technical interview with a major duplicator of CDs and DVDs, in which a lot of these arcane matters should be explained (not least to me!).
Another reason surround hasn't taken off yet is that almost anyone who hasn't worked with it thinks it's all a gimmick. I have to admit that I wasn't entirely convinced myself, until I did some surround mixes on my own system in early January. As soon as you switch back to stereo monitoring, the sense of disappointment is akin to hearing the vocal reverb turned off in a mix or bypassing a harmonic enhancer/exciter on a dull track.
One of the arguments against surround is that music is supposed to be in front of you, and, in the main, I agree with that — I don't want to hear guitar solos behind the sofa, especially when I can see the guitarist on the TV at the front of the room. However, surround is not necessarily about surrounding yourself with sound but rather creating a wider and more believable stereo image. It's also about recreating the three-dimensional ambience of a real venue — in a typical concert hall, over 90 percent of what you hear may be reflected sound, and most of that comes at you from all directions. In fact when you switch back to stereo, where the speakers typically cover an angle of only 60 degrees, you realise that what you have been listening to all these years isn't truly stereo at all — it's more like wide mono, and it sounds very flat and two-dimensional. In fact, I was so impressed with the results of remixing some of my old stuff in surround that I'm thinking of upgrading my live sound system to four channels. If it works out, I'll let you know!...."

quote by

Paul White Sound on Sound Editor In Chief


Z