FSOL on 5.1 audio

[Guest lime ruined my life]

I mean why do you post here?

It seems like you should ask yourself this question everytime you post.

My guess is napoleon complex, you have a need for personal gratification because of your bitterness towards the world. You portray yourself an omni-present authority on practically every subject you have the slightest knowledge of. You seem to be convinced that your largely unsuccesful life is a result of the city of Aberdeen and the people in it.

I understand that this post could be veiwed as a personal attack, i'll be the first to admit it. However, the point of this post is a last ditch plea for you, 'stripey', to stop attacking people so readily. Maybe you should employ the tried and tested forumula of not replying to every slightly provoking argument. People are always going to disagree on issues, the intelligent thing to do is to ignore the minor points, and therefore avoid a lot of conflict.

good day.

[Guest bluesxman]

I notice that the new Beatles thing, 'Love' is available in 5.1 format.

[Frosty Jack]

OK, I've just had another go at reading the whole thread, so here's my take.

Stripey has actually offered up a very interesting topic which is well worthy of discussion on here, and has put forward his points pretty well. In fact I'd say he's been pretty restrained considering.

Lime - I get the feeling you've found something to argue about and you're not letting it go, even if no-one else can really see what it is. This started out as information about a band who are interested in using 5:1. That's all. You may have had some interesting info, but it got lost somewhere.

Cloud - as per usual you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and right from your first post you've used this thread purely to snipe. Pointless, and very irritating as usual. If you can't contribute, don't post.

Personally I thought the FSOL video was so Nathan Barley it hurt, but I understand the point, and found it interesting, wanky language aside.

My take on it is that the sound (i.e. the tone, the melody, the harmony, the expression and the emotion) is what makes the difference. I don't care what direction it's coming at me from. I follow the idea. but I think it's all to easy to confuse emotional connection, with immersion.

Now let's cut out the personal shite, and get back to what is really an excellent thread.

[Alkaline]

I notice that the new Beatles thing, 'Love' is available in 5.1 format.

That's mixed in 5.1 but not recorded in 5.1

[Guest Gasss]

OK, I've just had another go at reading the whole thread, so here's my take.

Stripey has actually offered up a very interesting topic which is well worthy of discussion on here, and has put forward his points pretty well. In fact I'd say he's been pretty restrained considering.

Lime - I get the feeling you've found something to argue about and you're not letting it go, even if no-one else can really see what it is. This started out as information about a band who are interested in using 5:1. That's all. You may have had some interesting info, but it got lost somewhere.

Cloud - as per usual you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and right from your first post you've used this thread purely to snipe. Pointless, and very irritating as usual. If you can't contribute, don't post.

Personally I thought the FSOL video was so Nathan Barley it hurt, but I understand the point, and found it interesting, wanky language aside.

My take on it is that the sound (i.e. the tone, the melody, the harmony, the expression and the emotion) is what makes the difference. I don't care what direction it's coming at me from. I follow the idea. but I think it's all to easy to confuse emotional connection, with immersion.

Now let's cut out the personal shite, and get back to what is really an excellent thread.

IMHO the most interesting part of this thread is the discussion of alternative 3D sound imaging techniques, highlighted then corroborated by Lime and expanded on by waterpump and jalepeano death. The problem is that any attempt to suggest that 5.1 isn't the cutting edge of sound technology has been interpreted by some as a personal attack. What is the object of this (or any) thread if it is not to provoke a reasonable debate?

[Cloud]

Stripey has actually offered up a very interesting topic which is well worthy of discussion on here, and has put forward his points pretty well. In fact I'd say he's been pretty restrained

Pretty restrained? Telling people they have screws loose is restrained? I thought the whole point of this site was to stamp out all the attacks, not to say that they were restrained. I know there's the whole argument that the users should moderate themselves, but what's the point if telling someone that they have a screw loose is acceptable?

Cloud - as per usual you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and right from your first post you've used this thread purely to snipe. Pointless, and very irritating as usual. If you can't contribute, don't post.

Wait a minute, have you actually read my points, or are you just looking at the Stripey-baiting? My point was that using 5.1 is nothing impressive, particularly when it's widely installed and has gained mass acceptance. Other people weighed in with their contributions, but ultimately, I'd like to think that I managed to spark a decent debate with the whole 5.1 versus more speakers issue.

I may not know very much about the technologies behind speaker systems, but doesn't that mean that my opinion reflects the common person in the street, not audiophiles?

Incidentally, I'd love to try mixing music someday, particularly for something like 5.1 or better.

[Guest bluesxman]

That's mixed in 5.1 but not recorded in 5.1

Stripey's original post states FSOL material being mixed not recorded in 5.1.

[Cloud]

Stripey's original post states FSOL material being mixed not recorded in 5.1.

I'm going to admit my ignorance here and ask a stupid question - is it possible to record in 5.1?

[Guest bluesxman]

I'm going to admit my ignorance here and ask a stupid question - is it possible to record in 5.1?

I have no idea, I know the grand sum of naff all about it. I was only stating that the new Beatles album was available in that format as I saw it on an ad on the back of Uncut magazine. Someone else decided to pick at my statement when I had made no distinction, not sure why that was necessary, let's face it, it would be tricky for The Beatles to record in 5.1 given the state of decomposition of 2 of them.

[TR!ΔNGL€ T€€TH]

...let's face it, it would be tricky for The Beatles to record in 5.1 given the state of decomposition of 2 of them.

I say dig them up and give it a try anyway. It is nearly Christmas after all.

[Alkaline]

I have no idea, I know the grand sum of naff all about it. I was only stating that the new Beatles album was available in that format as I saw it on an ad on the back of Uncut magazine. Someone else decided to pick at my statement when I had made no distinction, not sure why that was necessary, let's face it, it would be tricky for The Beatles to record in 5.1 given the state of decomposition of 2 of them.

I wasn't nitpicking, just stating an informative point as people on here were looking at the bigger picture which included recording in 5.1 as well as mixing in 5.1.

And it would still be possible to make that album into a 5.1 recording by adding additional new recordings on other audio channels to compliment it.

I didn't even say you were wrong. Time of the month or something?

[Guest bluesxman]

I wasn't nitpicking, just stating an informative point as people on here were looking at the bigger picture which included recording in 5.1 as well as mixing in 5.1.

And it would still be possible to make that album into a 5.1 recording by adding additional new recordings on other audio channels to compliment it.

I didn't even say you were wrong. Time of the month or something?

No, they finished last week.

I never said you did say I was wrong, I just found it strange you had to expand on my post when I hadn't mentioned recording or mixing in particular, you seemed to be correcting me on a point I never made.

I just thought some people may find the idea of a Beatles recording in 5.1 more appealing than an FSOL one if they so wished to investigate, more familiar material for most I'm sure.

[Alkaline]

No, they finished last week.

I never said you did say I was wrong, I just found it strange you had to expand on my post when I hadn't mentioned recording or mixing in particular, you seemed to be correcting me on a point I never made.

I just thought some people may find the idea of a Beatles recording in 5.1 more appealing than an FSOL one if they so wished to investigate, more familiar material for most I'm sure.

I thought people might've been interested in what the exact format it was so i was just expanding on what you'd said for informative reasons, not having a go or anything.

There's no need to get upset about it.

[Guest bluesxman]

I thought people might've been interested in what the exact format it was so i was just expanding on what you'd said for informative reasons, not having a go or anything.

There's no need to get upset about it.

Well a'body's happy then let's not labour the point before other people decide they need to get involved.... I wasn't getting upset, it's not really in my top ten subjects to greet about...

[Guest lime ruined my life]

Lime - I get the feeling you've found something to argue about and you're not letting it go, even if no-one else can really see what it is. This started out as information about a band who are interested in using 5:1. That's all. You may have had some interesting info, but it got lost somewhere.

Personally I thought the FSOL video was so Nathan Barley it hurt, but I understand the point, and found it interesting, wanky language aside.

My take on it is that the sound (i.e. the tone, the melody, the harmony, the expression and the emotion) is what makes the difference. I don't care what direction it's coming at me from. I follow the idea. but I think it's all to easy to confuse emotional connection, with immersion.

Now let's cut out the personal shite, and get back to what is really an excellent thread.

Ok, firstly i commented on the video, and i agree with you, it's hard to take it seriously because of the way he brings himself across. I also said a song was a song was a song, whether it's in mono, stereo or 5.1. After saying this i feel my other point managed to be construed as a personal attack. i tried to elaborate on a previous discussion about 5.1 and how it's dated, by bringing up alternative solutions which i personally feel may be the future for directional sound.

In hindsight it might have been better just not to have bothered, as no one seemed to understand what i was talking about (stripey...). It seems stripey posts these threads just to get some sort of satisfaction when people post "yes stripey, yet another amazing link/point" and when someone posts anything that slightly deviates from what he wants the thread then deteriorates into a sort of school playground where mud slinging is revelled.

[Stripey]

I'm going to admit my ignorance here and ask a stupid question - is it possible to record in 5.1?

Sort of. You would still be recording using normal mono or stereo mic channels, but after having set up the position of each input in the software, or automating it during the recording. It would make more sense to do it after recording, which is another reason why it's particularly suited to the production techniques that people like FSOL use.

Any traditional existing recording could be turned into a 5.1 mix assuming you had splits of each channel, but like Stupot said, there probably isn't a lot of point in doing this for the typical "band". Certainly not for the type of bands listened to by those who can't appreciate any qualitative difference in the experience of listening to a piece of music on playback systems of varying accuracy.

I didn't start this thread with the intention of enabling a pretentious ego-swelling discussion about esoteric surround sound systems, and I certainly haven't claimed that 5.1 is "cutting edge" - just that it's the most accessible of these technologies in terms of tools available to the producer and hardware available to and already installed in millions of consumers homes.

All the whinging and aggro in this thread is nothing to do with me, there was never any argument in the first place until a couple of unpleasantly spiteful posters decided to embarass themselves by engaging in an argument which was a figment of their imagination.

Anyway, if anyone would like a 5.1 mix of their material done, give me a shout

[Alkaline]

Anyway, if anyone would like a 5.1 mix of their material done, give me a shout

There's 2 tracks of ours i wouldn't mind hearing in 5.1.....

[Stupot]

There's no difference in recording for 5.1 or stereo. If you know a mix is going to be a 5.1 mix, you make descisions on what you record and how many tracks you use. For example, if you were recording a live concert, you would record audience reactions like applause and room ambience to mix to the surround speakers to add a sense of space. If you were doing a wrap around mix, you may have guitars or keyboard washes in surround to place the listener in the band. Impluse reverbs work well in 5.1, giving a sense of space to a mix. There's virtually no limit to what you can do in 5.1 and often you find people going absolutely mad with it. It's great for plays and performance pieces.

It's relatively straightforward to turn a stereo mix into a 5.1 mix and most of the up to date DAWs will handle the mix.

The crunch is the encoding. A 5.1 mix needs to be encoded so that it will collapse into stereo when played on a stereo system. There's very few places in Scotland that have the licence for dolby ac3 encoding (we can do it, though!) but there are a few types of encoding that can be used that give good results.

And this is an interesting thread apart from the baiting of stripey just because he's stripey.

[waterpump]

Ambisonic systems are frequently employed in acoustics research facilities in Universities.

In the UK there is one at Derby University as part of the Signals Processing Faculty under Peter Lennox. at York University there is an Ambisonic system maintained by Dave Malham.

Angelo Farina has a system at the University of Milan, Italy. The world authorities in this area can be found on the majordomo sursound discussion forum.

Of course I have no information about private systems, but people in the UK who would like to hear an Ambisonic system may wish to contact the appropriate academic facilities at the respective Universities and perhaps they can arrange a visit. There may be a charge.

Ambisonics never took off because of lack of investment and the commercial stronghold of 5.1 film surround sound in the early days. Ambisonics is still an excellent system, and if truly coherent periphonic surround sound is required, definitely the way to go despite its limitations.

Interestingly it is possible to recode B Format Ambisonic sources to 5.1, and an example of this can be found as a 5.1 DTS track on a Rick Wakeman album I was involved in recording a few years ago at Lincoln Cathedral, available on the Voiceprint website. Try sitting a little foward of the central position for the best surround perception on this track. There are a series of Lincoln recordings featuring The Ric Sanders Group, Howard Riley and Roger Eno, each album contains headphone binaural and 5.1 DTS (Ambisonic) surround sound and although the recordings are somewhat experimental and variable in quality, some appreciation of both headphone binaural surround and planar Ambisonics (without height) can be appreciated from these recordings.

Also bear in mind that these are pure microphone recordings on location, not studio multimixes.

A brief extract of some of the headphone binaural tracks above can be found on my website:

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