Moving sound vertically in the stereo field

DaleVO

DaleVO

Poor Farm Productions
OK- this is probably way above my intelligence level, but has anyone ever tried moving sounds three-dimensionally?
D
 
I think you can do some vertical placement via EQ....low/high...but you can't really move it dramatically like you can L/R with panning.
Front/back is mainly the levels and wet/dry balance.
 
A company called Spinaudio used to do a plugin called 3D Panner that would simulate vertical positioning as well as horizontal. I played with a trial for a theatre project I was working on--it was pretty impressive on headphones but didn't do much if anything on speakers so I didn't bother purchasing it and used multiple speakers instead (this was about 11 years ago).

I just went to check their website to see if there were any updates and they no longer seem to exist--at least spinaudio.com is now one of those holding websites trying to sell me a plasma TV.
 
About all you can do is emphasize highs and decrease lows, especially given that higher frequencies are more directional and tweaters are usually at the top of the speaker cabinets.

Beyond that, the usual things to affect depth are:
Reverb and delay

Hard or soft transients

Relative volume compared to the other parts in the mix

I was always impressed with Qsound over speakers, but again, we're talking simulated stereo width, not height.

Panorama, a plug-in by Wave Arts, might give you what you're looking for over headphones. Anything using HRTF information isn't going to work over speakers.
 
Thanks for the responses. I have no purpose for needing to try to move sound vertically. Moreso, a desire to learn how it is done. I did find on the KVR-forum an old thread ( KVR: How to position a sound vertically in a stereo field? ) that discussed a couple of free, Beta VST plug-ins ( Swiss Center for Computer Music VST Ambisonic Tools ).

But what really triggered my curiosity was the Binaural recordings posted on YouTube like:
The Virtual Barbershop: Virtual Barber Shop (Audio...use headphones, close ur eyes) - YouTube

7 seconds in, made me wonder what fell off the bookshelf to my left.
Like JMZ said: this seems to only work on headphones and it is a QSounds production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-87i9rLwZE&feature=related
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJwUVCXH-gM&feature=related

Listening more critically, I think I hear it only panning L/R, using reverb, and volume changes. The three clips do not exactly portray the sound going above the head, that I recall hearing and thinking - now that was cool.
Thank y'all for taking the time to pacify a life-long learner.
D
 
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Vertical panning effect would be using a mixture of horizontal panning, volume change (forward/backward panning) and EQ automation and maybe reverb automation. :)
G
 
DaleVO said:
Thanks for the responses. I have no purpose for needing to try to move sound vertically. Moreso, a desire to learn how it is done. I did find on the KVR-forum an old thread ( KVR: How to position a sound vertically in a stereo field? ) that discussed a couple of free, Beta VST plug-ins ( Swiss Center for Computer Music VST Ambisonic Tools ).

But what really triggered my curiosity was the Binaural recordings posted on YouTube like:
The Virtual Barbershop: Virtual Barber Shop (Audio...use headphones, close ur eyes) - YouTube

7 seconds in, made me wonder what fell off the bookshelf to my left.
Like JMZ said: this seems to only work on headphones and it is a QSounds production.

3D audio sound objects with Blender (Binaural hearing using headphones) - YouTube
or
3D sound demonstration, amazing !! - YouTube

Listening more critically, I think I hear it only panning L/R, using reverb, and volume changes. The three clips do not exactly portray the sound going above the head, that I recall hearing and thinking - now that was cool.
Thank y'all for taking the time to pacify a life-long learner.
D
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In fact, our ears do give clues to height information, as well as front-to-back. Our brain can pick out subtle differences caused by reflections and diffractions off of the structure of our ears, head and torso. One effect, for example, may be a frequency notch somewhere around 3khz if the sound is coming from above the head, etc. I'm certain that it may be slightly different for each of us, but there may be enough in common between humans that you could make some general "rules" and create this effect by use of EQ, which is probably what those plug-ins do. Another would be to record with a dummy head in the first place.

I've experimented with them with some degree of success. Good binaural recordings are stunning, as you have found out.
 
Binaural auudio is madness to listen to!
Some guy has come up with a system that is proper 3D audio. Not surround sound, much better.
I wish I had the link or the guys name at least. :( Only he knows the technology at the moment.

G
 
I do it all time.
in 4 dimensions.
depth, height, left/right, and ... dynamic.
I "see" the music. It helps a lot when it comes to positioning instruments.
 
DSOTM Wow!

So yesterday I did a road trip to Vegas for a trade show...From my shack in LA it's just over 3 hours to get there...Being as it is a business trip I usually get a rental car...So i'm cruising out in the wide open Mojave desert listening to a playlist I'd made of Boomer music....and Dark Side of the moon came on...ok it's a long drive lets enjoy...

So you know how these cars today you can balance the stereo L & R/ Front and back I adjusted it so it was evenly balanced dead center...So I'm listening to this MP3 of DSOTM from my phone and somanabitch! Somehow back in 1971 Alan Parsons was creating aural placement...It was like I was listening in Quad like back in the 70's damn shit was moving all over the place to the left to the right rear going in circles...

How dey do dat?

I know there are a lot of plugins now like the Ambisonic Toolkit but what I found crazy as I continued my journey there and then back home the next day is how very few recordings take advantage of this incredible effect.

Rather than just listen to the music and enjoy I really paid attention to how about a 100 or so songs on this trip used placement of various instruments , vocals etc and was surprised how much stuff ( especially "new country") was just placed smack dab in the middle. The car had sirius radio so I bounced around a bit...

Anyway was looking for a thread that covered spatial positioning and came upon this one and decided to use it to expound upon my ignorance on the topic...

So I am curious who of our illustrious members here dabble in this witchcraft...and how you do it..

Definitely want to utilize this now that I have been indoctrinated into the secret club..

Side note ...WTF is up with "NEW COUNTRY MUSIC" talk about stuck in a rut , stick to the format....It's like change the words and repeat...song after song with the same lame formula...YUCK!
 
Panning and eq'ing of reverbs and delays. Delays below about 18-20 msec when placed where the source is panned and eq's can move stuff up or down(try it, it's weird) and adding early reflections with and without pre-delay can move it forward and back and reverb or er's panned opposite can push stuff "outside" of the speakers apparent sound field(again try it). I can tell you that Dark Side is nothing compared to Floyd's Final Cut when it comes to spatial manipulation IMHO
 
ecktronic said:
Binaural auudio is madness to listen to!
Some guy has come up with a system that is proper 3D audio. Not surround sound, much better.
I wish I had the link or the guys name at least. :( Only he knows the technology at the moment.

G
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Michael Gerzon?

He's the father of ambisonics. This started in the 60's at the BBC, so it's certainly not a recent thing. Kind of a spinoff of the research the BBC was doing with stereo. Due to the digital explosion, however, it has become practical lately. See:

Higher Order Ambisonics

On the input side, you need 4 channels and an ambisonic mic. The most known is the Soundfield. It used to come with a hardware converter. These days, the hardware converter has been replaced with VST plugins. And Rode and Sennheiser released ambi mics too, recently. Still not cheap, but we're getting there. There's even a recent Chinese mic for 350$. That's the cheapest one on the market. There's also the Zylia, from Poland. Equipped with a lot more than four mics.

It can be done with other mic setups too. But it would require a deeper understanding of the math involved. I'm not even thinking about that. Michael Gerzon used another setup, before Soundfield mics even existed.

Once you have the 4 channel recording (A format), you can derive stereo, binaural or any other format from it. You can also change directivity of the mic in post and other fancy stuff. In your DAW, you'll need B-format. It's really amazing what you can do with an ambisonic recording.

The problem lies on the playback side. If you want to process ambisonic audio in the studio, you need at the very least four identical speakers. And that's for 2D audio. For true 3D audio, you need at least eight identical speakers.

There are academic setups with hundreds of speakers. You'll find them in Canada, France, Finland, Italy, UK, Japan, New Zealand and a few other countries. There are also already a couple of companies specialising in ambisonic setups for events, in London and in France.

The end result from your studio will usually be binaural, because headphones are what everyone is using. Unless it's for movies, games or events. No living rooms with eight speakers around, unfortunately.

The game sector is also very interested and already experimenting with ambisonics, although their use is different. They need to map sound to a virtual 3D space. So they're usually recording in mono and mapping afterwards. Kind of the reverse idea. Same math, though.

Youtube already allows ambisonic sounds with 360° video. There are quite a few around. Facebook is also into it and has released an ambisonic toolkit. On the DAW side, you'll probably need to use Reaper, as the rest isn't even ready to catch up. Except maybe for Protools and Nuendo, but these are bloody expensive.

When it comes to playing back multi-channel audio through a browser, Chrome is what you need. Google has been developing an audio extension for years now and one of the things included, is ambisonic sound.

The first tool you would want to check out, is Ambisonic toolkit:

The Ambisonic Toolkit - Tools for soundfield-kernel composition

It's for Reaper, and free.

Another one is Daniel Courville's site:

Ambisonic Studio

Also nice, is IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique):

Accueil | IRCAM

Dave Malham's site has moved to:

Ambisonic.Net - where surround-sound comes to life

There are a lot of resources out there. But they're somewhat hard to google, unless you use "ambisonic" as search phrase. "Surround" will get you nowhere. That's just a studio produced artificial effect.

I think ambisonic recording is the future. It has already been used to record classical music commercially, although the output was still plain stereo. But it allows the mixing engineer to control the directivity of the mic in post. That in itself is a revolution. In popular music, like rock, it probably won't be as important, because there's no natural soundfield, because of DI's, reamping, synths and other electronic musical instruments. A jazz combo would work well. And of course, movie studio's are looking into it, because it can also produce 5.1 or even 10.2 surround for movie theatres.
 
noobUser said:
There is something called 8D sound (search in youtube)
Maybe that is what you are talking about.

C
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I came across that too. Fake. It's just a bunch of people who like to automate the pan button and think that's cool. Sometimes it's even cool. Most of the times, it's plain annoying...
 
All I can say: it was the music!

I saw Floyd doing DSOTM at the Music Hall in Boston. Rear row of the balcony. They used a quadrophonic sound system - all speakers on the stage/towers. When the futuristic 'train' sound panned from one side to the other - behind us! - half the audience turned around to look! Of course I suspect half the audience was as drugged up as I was, too!
 
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mjbphotos said:
All I can say: it was the music!

When the futuristic 'train' sound panned from one side to the other - behind us! - half the audience turned around to look! f course I suspect half the audience was as drugged up as I was, too!
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September 22nd 1972...Hollywood bowl I was sitting smack dab in the middle right in front of the sound man for the first ever quad concert at the Hollywood Bowl..this is pre-release of DSOTM but they were test driving it....Life changing experience for me...made me want to seek doing the same thing...

So yea it's easy to understand how they could pull of the quad effect by panning everything to a certain speaker...

But what I am speaking of in my road trip experience..... this was a stereo mp3 off of my phone that I just downloaded off of U-tube..and yes there were multiple speakers in the 2018 Chevy Cruz..but I listened to 5 hours of music and not a single other tune had the effect of making me think things were moving around left to right front to back...sure moonchild by King Crimson had bitchin cymbal separation L to r but nothing on my phone or radio did what DSOTM did... I'm tellin ya it's witchcraft or voo doo or something.... maybe Alan Parsons is the beast...
 
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