Become a Site Supporter and Never see Ads again!

Author Topic: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?  (Read 25167 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #60 on: October 08, 2014, 08:26:32 PM »
Why record 5 or 6 channels instead of 4?

The 5 channel OCT + spaced omni setup is a significant further improvement over the already impressive 4 channel setup described above.  Each supercardioid forms a near-spaced pair in combination with the center cardioid.  Each of those pairs has a Stereo Recording Angle which hands-off seamlessly to the other side in the middle.  The conical null plane of the supercardioid on each side faces the direction of the main front speaker and surround speaker on the opposite side, so the channel separation across the three closely spaced main LCR playback channels up front and the between the Left/Right main channels and their opposing surround channel on the opposite side in back is maximized as much as possible.  That means there is minimal L in the R channel and vice-versa, until well out to the far sides when the reverse polarity lobes come in at low level and help to decorellate any reverberant pickup from the far sides reaching the Left and Right channels.  It also means Rear Left Surround reaching the Front Right speaker is minimized and vice-versa.  Probably least important aspect, which is still very nice to have, is the surround channels are now fully discrete for even greater natural 3-dimensional ambient envelopment and improved directional imaging of audience sounds (which further improves the cocktail party effect related ability to 'tune out' sounds in back which we don't care to pay attention to).
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline vanark

  • TDS
  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (29)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *
  • Posts: 8510
  • If you ain't right, you better get right!
    • The Mudboy Grotto - North Mississippi Allstar fan site
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #61 on: October 08, 2014, 08:45:56 PM »
I appreciate the usual details, Gutbucket.

However, the last 6 posts are why I don't want to consider recording in surround sound.  Way too complicated for my audio aural experience.  I wouldn't ever release a recording but I'd have hard drives filled with GB's full of surround sound files undecoded.
If you have a problem relating to the Live Music Archive (http://www.archive.org/details/etree) please send an e-mail to us admins at LMA(AT)archive(DOT)org or post in the LMA thread here and we'll get on it.

Link to LMA Recordings

Link to Team Dirty South Recordings on the LMA

Mics: Microtech Gefell M21 (with Nbob actives) | Church Audio CA-11 (cards) (with CA UBB)
Pres: babynbox
Recorders: Tascam DR-60D | Tascam DR-40 | Sony PCM-A10 | Edirol R-4

Offline DSatz

  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (35)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *
  • Posts: 3347
  • Gender: Male
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #62 on: October 08, 2014, 08:48:57 PM »
Decades ago I set up a pair of speakers in the back of my listening room with a Dynaquad hookup, then some years later I repeated this experiment with a Sony ambience amplifier. It was pleasant and interesting, and the listening experience (with my own, mainly two-microphone recordings) suddenly became less exciting if you switched the rear channels off--proof that something positive was being offered.

But it never got to where it seemed like a natural part of the playback, and it always required fiddling with the front/back balance, which was a substantial distraction. Every recording needed different settings; many recordings (especially multi-miked commercial LPs) didn't benefit much from having the rear channels no matter what settings were chosen. It wasn't long before I went back to just two speakers.

Nowadays I could easily record with the Schoeps "double M/S" approach and derive high-quality surround from that, but I find that I just don't want to bother. I record mainly for other people--mostly musicians--and they all have two-channel playback systems. I don't think I know anyone who listens to music recordings in surround, other than two antithetical groups of people: (a) some engineers I know, mostly in Europe, who are professionally involved with surround sound, and (b) some other people who play back all their recordings on their (relatively casual-fi) video sound systems, who don't bother to turn the rear channels off even though they're usually not sitting in the central listening area.

No doubt surround can help to recreate something like "the feeling of a concert hall experience." But when I record, I'm not trying to recreate that experience. I'm not even sure why anyone would want to, unless they got interested in that challenge for its own sake. I'm a trained classical musician who mainly records classical music, but to me there's nothing sacred or special about any particular concert hall, or concert halls in general. They're places where people like to go to hear (and some of us go to perform) some kinds of music; they're good at supporting that activity. But they represent a certain, special listening "idiom," while I'm just trying to present the music the best I can for the playback approach that nearly everyone employs for home listening--a pair of front loudspeakers spaced some distance apart. The two sound idioms (concert hall vs. home listening) are very different.

Many people here record with one of two types of pickup technique, one of which has terrible stereo imaging (spaced omnis) and the other one of which doesn't often capture the spaciousness of a hall (X/Y, especially when cardioids are used, even worse when they're dual-diaphragm cardioids, and worst of all when the angle between them is too narrow). So evidently, a lot of people are willing to give up a whole lot of one or the other main benefit of stereo, even though there are perfectly viable alternatives.

--best regards
« Last Edit: September 20, 2015, 09:19:32 PM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #63 on: October 08, 2014, 10:53:33 PM »
vanark, Most of that stuff is in the last 6 posts is detailing playback complications and explaining a few ways of working around them for anyone who is interested and would actually like to try it.  Much of the remainder is an attempt at some explanation of why it works rather than a straight outline of what to do.

But at the heart of it you're absolutely right of course!


DSatz, thanks for your insightful and always welcome comments.  You're also are of course completely correct, except I'll disagree about the ability to achieve high-quality surround (for music at least) from a double M/S setup.  Double M/S is a subset of ambisonics, using a 'native array' of standard capsules for horizontal only recording and reproduction (as opposed to a tetrahedral array as used in the SoundField and TetraMic ambisonic implementations).  As a first-order coincident format, I maintain that it is limited to at most 4 channel output in high-quality and that the quality of it's output for channel counts greater that that will degrade rapidly due to the increasing overlap of the first-order microphone coincident patterns, especially in an asymmetric playback array such as the common 5 channel surround setup for film (ITU-R BS 775).  At it's heart this is basically the same argument you make against coincident formats for 2-channel stereo using cardioids.  All this is not to say double M/S is may not be an wise choice for TV surround, film ambiance work or any application where it's small and compact size is more important than the ultimate sound quality for multichannel music reproduction, especially since many of those applications targeting the common 5-channel playback arrangements reserve the center channel for dialog use only.  Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I venture there are no professional orchestras using a double-M/S or a tetrahedral ambisonic microphone in place of a main microphone spaced array of some sort + surround mics for their 5 and 7 channel film soundtrack recordings, irregardless of the section and spot microphones used.

My experience in experimenting with Dynaquad hookups, ambience extraction and matrix surround techniques years ago was similar to what you describe.  Interesting, fun to play with, exciting on some material, I personally learned things from playing around with those things but eventually they were not something that stuck.

I mentioned at the start of this thread that I'm not out to convert anyone.  But I would like to share what I've learned with anyone here who is interested at all, even if no one else ever cares to try any of it.  For me, working through all this and developing techniques which accomplish what I want to achieve, although far from a mainstream approach, is all part of the fun, challenge and enjoyment for me.  In part it's a challenge for its own sake like you say, but I would have dropped it all long ago if that's all it was.  It really does grab me in a way no stereo reproduction has ever been able to do, and is a deeper path into the emotional and artistic essence of music for me.  That part of this is a completely personal thing, and perhaps a guilty and selfish pleasure on my part, but regardless I value that experience greatly, and for me that in itself is enough.  There are far worse personal vices to chase. 

Great performance spaces aren't sacred, neither are any recording techniques, playback systems, or priceless instruments with astronomical values made by artisans centuries ago on which highly talented musicians perform.  But what is truly special and perhaps sacred is the transcendent experience which really excellent music is capable of stirring within us.  For me, on top of all this being an interesting intellectual challenge, a fun hobby and diversion from other more serious facets of my life, it is most valuable to me as a tool for chasing, enhancing and making the most of that personal transcendent experience.  That it is capable of doing that is absolutely astounding to me, and more than reason enough for me to pursue it.  If other's can get the same enjoyment from it in the minor sense, or anything close to the transcendence its opened up for me in that greater sense, that's fantastic, but I'm not pursuing this with that expectation.  The goal for me isn't perfect 'fidelity' in recreating the original, I know it's all at best a convincing illusion.  It's not even about sharing the music, as laudable as that is and although I hope that's a by-product of all this. It's really just about making what's "good" in my personal experience of the music "better", and secondarily discussing the pursuit of that on this technical music recording forum.

And for that reason, I did sort of hope that more people around here would be interested in discussing the basic acoustics, engineering and stuff on which this is based, along with the practical implementations, but that is what it is, and there seems to be less discussions of that type around here than there were a number of years ago.  This thread got me worked up and obviously uncorked the ink a bit.

~Regards and thanks for the ear.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #64 on: October 08, 2014, 11:02:44 PM »
Some stuff I already wrote earlier but didn't post so I’ll post it now before I sign off-


Here are a few things I've leaned with those setups which surprised me, and may be hard for you all to believe-

I knew I wanted the omnis widely spaced for optimal low frequency envelopment, and to generally match the stereo SRA at the recording positions from which I’m using this setup.  That doesn't change between these 4 to 6 channel setups.  It is about twice what I would use and generally suggest for a 2-channel A-B setup from the same location, which is typically about 3’.  That’s probably not hard to believe.

I thought making the surrounds discrete by using the omnis for that role instead of mult'ing all the surrounds from a single rear facing microphone would be a lot more important for good surround ambiance than I now think it is, even though it does offers a very welcome improvement (the improvement in audience imaging is far greater, but that doesn't really matter so much in the grand scheme of things). 

I was surprised that pointing supercardioids directly to the sides works so well as Left/Right channels, even though I know that its in combination with the center microphone, I understand the Stereo Zoom implications combined with the narrower speaker spacing between L/C and C/R compared to a stereo pair setup feeding L/R speakers spaced twice as wide, and that it is based on the OCT setup designed and well justified on strong theoretical grounds by Gunther Theile.  It still feels somewhat odd to me angling what is essentially a main L/R pair 180 degrees apart, pointing directly to the sides, even with a center cardioid in the middle facing directly forward.  I know many of you will dismiss that outright as being simply insane, despite any logical justifications for it.


And a few concluding remarks from earlier, then I’ll let it lie-

Good pedigree mics are always best, but a good recording position and appropriate mic configuration are far more important.  Inexpensive mics properly arranged and placed in a better recording position will make a far superior recording than zillion dollar mics plopped down wherever without much thought behind their setup. Just like stereo.

These mic setups have a lot of thought and experimentation behind them on my part but are actually quite simple to setup and use. Even the 5 (or 6) channel OCT+omnis setup basically has all the mics arranged more or less in a row, essentially distributed along long bar except for the center/back pair, which doesn't stick out far enough to be much more of problem than a typical stereo setup.   I find that to be the case even at outdoor events where people march around with stuffed animals on poles and other crazy stuff.  Audiences tend to arrange themselves naturally in rows either standing or sitting in folding chairs and the wide but thin front/back setup works well in that situation. The 6' width of the omnis can be somewhat difficult to manage at times but no different than a stereo pair of spaced omnis spaced the same distance.  It’s really not too bad to handle or even very visually intrusive from behind with the thin black TV antennas and lightweight miniature omnis. I love help blocking but commonly run these things myself from the middle of a crowd.  If the situation is sketchy but manageable, I can retract the omnis to a narrower spread of 3’ or so and comfortably block solo.

One of the most important aspects in working through how to go about conceptualizing what is going on with all this, then putting stuff together and testing variations to confirm how it actually works in the real world, has been reading and referring to the basic work of people I deeply admire who have graciously shared much of their knowledge on the internet, such as David Griesinger, Michael Williams, Gunther Theile, Eberhard Sengpiel, and Stan Linkwitz to name only a small handful of many of the top of my head.  I’ll never achieve anywhere close the accomplishments and contributions of those experts, but I still enjoy sharing what I’ve learned of all this and TS is the place I can do that.

Thanks also to the gear-makers that make this possible. Especially the smaller manufacturers which make gear specifically targeting live music recording who are members here such as Jon at Naiant, Chris at Church Audio, Len at Core Sound, and cable makers like Ted and Darktrain.  These surround recording systems I’m writing about use gear from all of those guys.  Thanks.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #65 on: October 08, 2014, 11:05:29 PM »
Oh yeah, forgot this side note I had posted earlier, then removed because it wasn’t really relevant and distracted from the stuff I was posting about.  But people asked about this earlier and it seems to be a common question in dealing with surround so here it is (re-posted):

On the .1 channel in 5.1, 7.1 etc.-

You can always ignore recording a .1 channel.  The recording of a .1 channel is completely separate from the effective use of subwoofers on playback.  Recording a .1 channel is completely unnecessary and a useless complication which gains you nothing.  Storage of a .1 channel is an archaic, pre-digital movie cinema holdover and 'work around' from the era when sufficient dynamic range for tactile rumble and boom was limited by large theater analog playback system equipment.  The recording of a .1 channel is completely separate from the effective use of subwoofers for playback, which can very advantageous.  Proper bass-management for mulitchannel playback augmented by subwoofers, and for small satellite speaker / subwoofer playback systems which are totally dependent a subwoofer for large portions of their frequency response, is specific to the particulars of each system and is done at the playback system level.  We easily record the full frequency range with two channel stereo, we can do the same with multichannel.  Ignore the .1 and focus on the main channels.  It still applies to cinema sound, but is really only for compatibility reasons and not based on any rational requirements for modern surround recording and reproduction.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #66 on: December 02, 2014, 03:31:27 PM »
I had forgotten that we had a similar discussion a number of years back, at least the details of the Soundfield/TetraMic ambisonic microphone options for stereo, until I came across the older thread today.  Linking it here as its relevant to this discussion- http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=141195.msg1823667#msg1823667
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline DSatz

  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (35)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *
  • Posts: 3347
  • Gender: Male
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #67 on: December 12, 2014, 12:59:46 PM »
gutbucket, I just wanted to say "Yes, I agree" to the paragraph in your first message from Oct. 8, where you discussed the limitations of double M/S as a pickup method for 5.1 surround.

Unfortunately I'm not in the loop enough any more to know what microphone setups the major European orchestras are using for surround broadcasts or recordings. The next NY AES convention, when I see some friends from Germany and elsewhere, I'll ask. But if any of them are one-point setups, or even self-contained "tree"-type setups like the Microtech Gefell five-mike setup, then I think that would be for the sake of full compatibility with two-channel playback--a special requirement for broadcasting that doesn't apply quite as much with other forms of distribution (whatever those may be).

--best regards
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #68 on: December 12, 2014, 06:06:12 PM »
Thanks, I'll be interested in hearing about that.

I assume the focus of most professional surround recording of music done on-location with surround microphone arrays these days is orchestral recording of film scores by movie studios, at least here in the USA.  The situation may be somewhat different in Europe.


I'm convinced the greatest potential for growth of good surround playback will be via virtualized binaural playback using ordinary headphones, and perhaps secondarily in-car-surround-audio, rather than in-room multi-channel surround playback setups in people's homes.   If there is a future for surround recording of live-music of the type this web-forum focuses on, with wide distribution of those recordings as is done today with stereo recordings, I expect that is how most people will listen to and enjoy them.


My greatest challenge and focus at this point forward lies on the post-recording side of things.  Software tools are advancing and slowly falling into place.  I really like to find a way to mix my recordings to a single distributable format which works for fully discrete multichannel surround playback over speakers, virtualizes to binaural headphone playback, and which also folds down gracefully without artifacts for regular 2-channel stereo speaker or headphone playback.  In light of that, I've recently been reading a bit about the Auro-3-D format which is very interesting in that it purportedly can, among other things, losslessly encode effectively 16+bits of multichannel information into a two channel 24-bit stereo PCM file by using a few of the least significant bits to store something like checksum and metadata, allowing for either extraction of the original 6 channels of 16+bit information from the single 24-bit stereo PCM file by use of a decoder, or direct stereo playback of the file for a 2-channel fold down mix without any decoding.

The encoding and multichannel extraction is proprietary at this point is seems, but apparently has potential to become something of an open format.  In any case, the 2-channel WAV is always playable.  Interesting paper on the codec downloadable at this link-

http://www.auro-3d.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/Auro3D-Octopus-White-Paper-v2-7-20111117.pdf
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)

  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (3)
  • Taperssection Member
  • *
  • Posts: 381
    • Core Sound
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #69 on: December 13, 2014, 07:21:30 PM »
Have you seen this excerpt from a Paul McCartney virtual reality concert? It's available as an app from Jaunt VR:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jauntvr.preview.mccartney
Len Moskowitz
Core Sound
www.core-sound.com

Offline ScoobieKW

  • Trade Count: (3)
  • Taperssection All-Star
  • ****
  • Posts: 1664
    • ScoobieSnax Audio Archive
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #70 on: December 14, 2014, 02:58:20 AM »
Thanks, I'll be interested in hearing about that.

I assume the focus of most professional surround recording of music done on-location with surround microphone arrays these days is orchestral recording of film scores by movie studios, at least here in the USA.  The situation may be somewhat different in Europe.


I'm convinced the greatest potential for growth of good surround playback will be via virtualized binaural playback using ordinary headphones, and perhaps secondarily in-car-surround-audio, rather than in-room multi-channel surround playback setups in people's homes.   If there is a future for surround recording of live-music of the type this web-forum focuses on, with wide distribution of those recordings as is done today with stereo recordings, I expect that is how most people will listen to and enjoy them.


My greatest challenge and focus at this point forward lies on the post-recording side of things.  Software tools are advancing and slowly falling into place.  I really like to find a way to mix my recordings to a single distributable format which works for fully discrete multichannel surround playback over speakers, virtualizes to binaural headphone playback, and which also folds down gracefully without artifacts for regular 2-channel stereo speaker or headphone playback.  In light of that, I've recently been reading a bit about the Auro-3-D format which is very interesting in that it purportedly can, among other things, losslessly encode effectively 16+bits of multichannel information into a two channel 24-bit stereo PCM file by using a few of the least significant bits to store something like checksum and metadata, allowing for either extraction of the original 6 channels of 16+bit information from the single 24-bit stereo PCM file by use of a decoder, or direct stereo playback of the file for a 2-channel fold down mix without any decoding.

The encoding and multichannel extraction is proprietary at this point is seems, but apparently has potential to become something of an open format.  In any case, the 2-channel WAV is always playable.  Interesting paper on the codec downloadable at this link-

http://www.auro-3d.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/Auro3D-Octopus-White-Paper-v2-7-20111117.pdf

Dolby Atmos is coming to home theater systems in the future.

Atmos is a method of defining a mix independent of speaker placement. Place your sources in 3D space (which may be modified over time). Give Atmos the details of your speaker setup, number of channels, placement, etc and it processes the mix custom to the room.

Busman BSC1, AT853 (O,C),KAM i2 Chuck Mod (C), Nak 300 (C),
M10, UA-5, US-1800, Presonus Firepod

http://kennedy-williams.net/scoobiesnax/

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #71 on: December 15, 2014, 01:41:44 AM »
The technology behind object-based systems (as opposed to more traditional channel defined systems) like Atmos and DTX MDA is very cool, yet I don't see an object-based system being obviously advantageous in live-music recording.  It's value for constructing complex movie sound from a multitude of individual elements is easy to see, and I can imagine it being used for building surround music recording similarly from individual elements. It seems to me it's analogous to building a stereo mix from a multitrack, panning individual elements around, as opposed to recording with a stereo or surround microphone array with microphones assigned directly to playback channels.

For a more on Atmos, MDX, Auro-3D, etc., here are a number of videos from Mix Magazine's Imersive Sound Conference-http://soundworkscollection.com/videos/Mix-Magazine-Immersive-Sound-Conference

The DTS Headphone X surround visualization sounds potentially promising.  I haven't heard any demos of it yet.  However, I remain suspicious of any virtualizer which doesn't use individual measurements of the users own HRTFs. In my experience the only headphone surround visualization I've heard which worked incredibly well without artifacts (so utterly convincing it's spooky) is the Smyth Realizer- http://www.smyth-research.com/, capable of up to 8 channels placed anywhere, but that's a rather costly dedicated processing box which requires specific calibration for each listener using miniature microphones placed in one's ears to record personal HTRFs for all speaker locations to be reproduced and for correcting the headphone response itself. If anyone reading this ever gets a chance to have the personal calibration done and demo it, I recommend doing so highly. I haven't yet listened to Darin Fong's Out Of Your Head multichannel virtualization plugin, which purportedly uses speaker measurements taken with the Smyth Virtualizer but use generic HRTFs instead of being personalized to the listeners ears.  Demos files can be found here- https://fongaudio.com/demo/

I'll have to checkout that McCartney VR concert excerpt too.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)

  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (3)
  • Taperssection Member
  • *
  • Posts: 381
    • Core Sound
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #72 on: December 21, 2014, 04:20:10 PM »
Dolby Atmos is coming to home theater systems in the future.

Atmos is a method of defining a mix independent of speaker placement. Place your sources in 3D space (which may be modified over time). Give Atmos the details of your speaker setup, number of channels, placement, etc and it processes the mix custom to the room.

Ambisonics does the same and it's open source, mature, and essentially free. In my opinion, Atmos is Dolby's attempt to keep their rather lucrative cinema franchise going with a surround product that's no better than Ambisonics, especially when Ambisonics is supplemented by other perceptual location enhancers like Harpex.
Len Moskowitz
Core Sound
www.core-sound.com

Online Gutbucket

  • record > listen > revise technique
  • Trade Count: (16)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 15700
  • Gender: Male
  • "Better to love music than respect it" ~Stravinsky
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #73 on: December 23, 2014, 01:01:51 PM »
Outside of both systems 'decoupling' the mix from the playback speaker arrangement, the biggest difference between Atmos and Ambisonics is that Atmos is object based, so some things remain defined as individual elements which play back at specific times and in defined spatial locations all the way to the rendering device in the theater, rather than being a fully pre-cooked mix.  That's where much of the value exists in the new formats, for cinema applications at least.

Other than the techniques for recording, one of the aspects I find most interesting and applicable here is this 'decoupling' of recording and storage formats from playback formats.  I think that's where the most growth and adoption potential for surround sound lie in general, and more specifically for a wider application of surround sound for music reproduction.  Ambisonics has been capable of that from the beginning that’s the way it is almost always used. 

Perhaps ironically, the surround recording techniques I've discussed previously in the thread are mostly conceptually simple approaches with direct mapping from microphone channel to speaker playback channel.  That direct channel mapping is what presents the biggest problem with playback flexibility. Those techniques and the recordings made with them needn't always be constrained that way though, and that’s the direction forward to greater adoption.

In the commercial cinema world, which drives the surround sound market and where all serious technological developments are focused, Dolby now markets their zillion speaker Atmos system to theater owners, while Barco offers lower-cost 9 to 12 channel Auro theater options, and DTS offers their alternate take on commercial movie theater.  All those companies now talk about arriving at a defacto common open standard to simplify the creation, and distribution of  film content (or rather ‘digital theater’, as 'film' rapidly becomes an archaic term sort of like us referring to live music recording as 'taping').  They differentiate themselves by marketing their own production tools to creators, while understanding the value of producing output which will work more or less everywhere through any other company’s B-chain reproduction equipment, but also strongly market their own versions of that reproduction gear to differentiate themselves to theater owners.  The differences lie at the ends of the chain, the need for common ground lies in the middle. This is the direction things are rapidly moving in the cinema world, and is the reasonable and perhaps inevitable approach as surround sound playback solutions constantly evolve towards more and more complex arrangements at the front and back ends of the chain.

In contrast, the situation of the past 25 years or so has been one of final reproduction formats which are more or less standardized (5.1 / 7.1), but using different proprietary distribution formats specific to each company: Dolby digital, DTS, SDDS.  Now the reproduction formats have become different from each other, and it has become beneficial to these companies to provide movie studios and theaters with more of an open common storage and distribution format, while freeing themselves to develop creation and final playback tools where they can differentiate their products.  This is a business to business thing between companies such as Dolby, movie studios and theater owners and doesn't directly affect us as individuals but is a positive trend and the trickle-down from this dynamic has the potential to be very beneficial..

Ambisonics already works that way.  It exists in all three realms- recording/creation, storage/manipulation, and playback.  It is almost never used exclusively for all three, especially playback, at least outside of research institutes and places like science museums. There is no potential for growth of classic ambisonic playback through geometrically symmetrical playback arrays, although there is possibly some application of ambisonic techniques to improve non-ambisonic playback.  It can be used for storage, but is only used in the cinema world on the content creation side (recording), so its use as a widespread storage format is unlikely and also less flexible.  It is obviously used for recording via ambisonic microphones as well as other direct creation techniques, and in that case is often directly converted to some other form for storage/manipulation and final output (ie: directly from microphone A-format to a virtual 2-channel stereo output for instance through a SoundField microphone controller box or the Tetramic software)

Ambisonics might be best utilized as a simple and powerful manipulation tools for other formats, separate from its creation and reproduction aspects, where the techniques work for stereo manipulation as well as multichannel surround.  Ambisionics ‘decoupled’ the recording/creation stage from the storage/manipulation stage and the playback stage from the start, long before other surround formats which are only beginning to do so now.

Harpex exists in this world of ‘decoupled’ formats, as it is specific purpose is to convert and manipulate ambisonic (or other) input to form two-channel stereo or binaural headphone output.

Outside of the cinema, binaural reproduction over headphones is the most likely way for a majority of people to be able to enjoy surround content these days, regardless of whether the content was originally constructed from objects flown around by a mixer on a dub-stage, or recorded with microphones binaurally, ambisonicly or some other way.  Yet that same content should be expected to also work in the car, out of the TV, over a traditional stereo system, in the home-theaters of the few that have them, in the big-ticket Atmos or Barco or DTS theaters downtown, or wherever.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2014, 01:08:03 PM by Gutbucket »
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)

  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (3)
  • Taperssection Member
  • *
  • Posts: 381
    • Core Sound
Re: Why Aren't Tapers Recording for Surround Sound?
« Reply #74 on: December 23, 2014, 01:17:50 PM »
> Harpex exists in this world of ‘decoupled’ formats, as it is specific purpose is to convert and manipulate ambisonic (or other) input to form two-channel stereo or binaural headphone output

It does much more than that and is not limited to two-channel formats.

It does active filtering, and to my ear, it tracks objects based on their frequency features.

See harpex.net for more details
Len Moskowitz
Core Sound
www.core-sound.com

 

RSS | Mobile
Page created in 0.123 seconds with 44 queries.
© 2002-2024 Taperssection.com
Powered by SMF