Surround and/or multi-channel music

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Joachip
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Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by Joachip »

Just curious here. has anyone in here been experimenting in making music with more than two channels? Like e.g. music for a four-speaker setup or even surround?
snowglobe
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by snowglobe »

Joachip wrote:Just curious here. has anyone in here been experimenting in making music with more than two channels? Like e.g. music for a four-speaker setup or even surround?
I attended a 'new music' performance on Friday that got me thinking about this very thing. The event itself (which, for the acutely curious, was cello-centric) was to my tastes a little on the ho-hum side, but the space where it went down was very cool: a small, roundish room with stained-glass windows up on the top floor of a terrific old building that was once a kind of boarding school. I think the room was originally the school's chapel. Anyway, they apparently frequently host 'adventurous/experimental' sorts of musical happenings there, and I keep thinking about how cool it would be to do something with beaucoup speakers lining the perimeter of the space.

This guy here - http://acousmodules.free.fr/ - puts out some pretty wild multi-channel plug-ins, btw.
esp81
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by esp81 »

I've done it in Cubase a few times, is this even possible in Buzz?
mute
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by mute »

Of course it is, multichannel audio out is multichannel audio out..

Joa, you should talk to elekt in the #.. pretty sure he's got experience with this

Most "surround" or 5.1 cards have a monitor/mixer that has the tools you need so all thats necessary are the appropriate Audio Out machines.

There are some nice vsts out there for surround/5.1/etc. panning.. they work just like any other multi-in/multi-out effect.. just plug your outputs into the right ones.
boombaxx
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by boombaxx »

My EMU 12/12m has 32 channel out thru it,s internal mixer. The only problem is using polac out 2 that it disables the hd recorder because nothing is connected to the master. So i had to use a recorder to record anything, it would be great if you could use multitrack and route it thru the master which could handle multiple asio audio channels. With multi track writing in the internal HD recorder
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Joachip
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by Joachip »

Little follow-up, and I'll start with my main question: Does anyone in here have a surround setup? Even just a cheap logitech setup or such? Anything? I also wonder if surround music (apart from movie soundtracks) is a thing of the past?

Whatever... I like chasing rainbows. So... years have passed since my last surround experiment, and it seems it might be slightly easier to create surround music now, because of several things:

1) We now have to deal with mp4 (AAC) instead of the pesky ac3 format.
2) Samplitude (my weapon of choice) can now export 6-channel .wav files - something that seems to be mostly used in the open-source world, whereas the broadcast industry seem to lean towards 6x mono or 3x stereo .wav files as far as I've seen.
3) ffmpeg (if compiled while the magic is in sync with the orbit of mars) can encode these files by using one of the following commands:

ffmpeg -i input.wav -acodec aac output.m4a
ffmpeg -i input.wav -acodec libfdk_aac output.m4a
Tiadiad
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by Tiadiad »

I've been giving this some thought myself in the last few years. Based on the speed of tech innovation, it is not out of the question that surround could kick in, and kick in fast on a consumer, and pro level, and then we will all have to start thinking much harder.
It's not the same thing as what happened when we went from mono to stereo, as surround was available 20 years ago, but there will be some egg breaking to make the surround omelete. So many things that we stick by in the stereo world would have to be rethought. Things like directionality of the music for instance. Audio field priority and all that. For me surround is both exciting, and a ton of work at the same time.
I think a huge part of why surround is still not "in" when it comes to music is because of the bulkyness of the surround systems, the speakers, the wires, connectivity... Not to mention that in the mobile world many gadgets are still in mono. Translating that into surround would mean reshaping the world of recorded music, and music in general (assuming we are speaking about music). Some artists attempt to weather the surround storm themselves, but at this point they are the explorers of the widely unknown.
Surround is the natural evolution of the recording arts, as it gets closer to the authentic representation of realistic sound. I think it also means approaching modern music writing in a very different way than what we are accustomed to.
Last, but not least, if you do write in surround, real, authentic surround, only people with true surround systems will be able to enjoy your work. So I think both consumer, and pro gear would have to walk in step with one another to make the switch as painless as possible for both sides.
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Joachip
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by Joachip »

Good input Tiadiad, there are certainly lots of issues with all this.

At least I got the tech issues sorted out already. So I'm tempted to doing yet another surround test song, probably chill-out/ambient stuff. I guess the only people who will be able to play it conveniently will be anyone who has a surround setup attached to their computer, like maybe gamers and a few movie geeks. But then again, my total combined target audience is small enough to fit into a car or perhaps a small bus, so popularity was never a reason to do anything to begin with... so I might as well give it a shot.
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UNZ
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Re: Surround and/or multi-channel music

Post by UNZ »

i think the fact that movie enthusiasts / composers are much more into surround than music lovers / makers already tells a lot. it's just not practical, the WAF is low etc hehe.
consumers seem to actually go a step down and use those boom-box-type mono speakers now...because it connects to mobile phones...
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