5.1 Mix

  • Thread starter Thread starter antrover
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antrover

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I'm looking to start mixing in 5.1 with Nuendo. Anyways... I'm looking for a decoder. I've been to a seminar that Mike Sokol was heading for Tannoy. He had an SH-AC500D by Technics. He then ran the signal to his Tannoy Ellipse 8's. Anyways.... the SH-AC500D had been discontinued. Are there any other decoders out there that offer:

Dynamic range compression
Center/Surround Channel Delay
4 Digital inputs (2 optical, 2 coaxial)
6 analog inputs

Those requirements should be pretty standard.

Thanks a lot!
Dave

P.S.
Midiman has a new product on the market which is the M-Audio Sonica. Has anyone had any experience with this. It claims it can do USB audio at 7.1 24bit/96khz. Here's the link. http://www.midiman.com/products/consumer/sonicaTheatre_page1.php
 
To simply monitor a surround mix you wouldn't actually use a decoder you just need the 6 channels of analog or digital output to connect to the power amp/monitors.

The real question is how are you going to ENCODE the surround sound. Most software will spit out multiple analog or digital outs and some software gives you easy surround mixing tools to pan across the outputs. But actually having an encoded mix is a different matter. I've yet to come across an encoder software/hardware combo that is less than $3K.

What you will end up with is a 6 channel surround mix that can only be played through your Nuendo software and requires no Decoder and would still have to be mastered and ENcoded to be a true surround mix that can be played on other DVD/CD players.

That was how things stood a few months back when I was looking into it. Nuendo may now Encode for surround and if that is the case please straighten me out.
 
Nuendo does encode, from what I understand. They have an AC-3 package available. (it's on www.nuendo.com half way down the page I believe).

I was actually talking with the Tannoy rep, and he said all I need is that Sonica Theater and a decoder going to a receiver. Maybe I miss understood him, which is very possible. :-/
 
That's pretty cool. I didn't know they had that.

The question now is does it encode in realtime? If not you will only be able to hear the final master in surround and you will need a monitoring system like I mentioned above for the actual mixing. If it does encode on the fly what is the latency?

How much is that selling for?

The next question would be will that software work with the Delta box to send the surround over USB? There may be some driver issues.

If the delta doesnt work I would assume you could use any soundcard with SPDIF outputs and send that to any home surround decoder with SPDIF inputs because AC3 can be sent over a single SPDIF line.

Please keep us informed if you can pull this off because I haven't seen a cheap solution for home surround mastering and it's something I would like to do also.

PS- Take the Tannoy reps advice with a grain of salt because he just wants you to buy more monitors.
 
Why?

Because the market is heading towards 5.1.

Why are you recording in stereo?


The Tannoy rep just doesn't endorse Tannoy... we weren't even really talking about the monitors. I was more interested in how the signal got to the speakers and the pieces of hardware he was using.

Here's some links that might help:

http://www.edirol.com/press/html/recording_tour.html

http://www.modernrecording.com/articles/soundav/link46.html

http://www.apple.com/creative/musicaudio/surroundtour/

The last one really goes in depth about the gear he uses.

Hope some of that helps!
 
Re: Why?

antrover said:
Because the market is heading towards 5.1.
Click to expand...

Oh? Last time I checked, you can't buy a 5.1 cd in stores. Last time I checked, cd players aren't equipped to handle 5.1. Last time I checked humans only have two ears, thus stereo.

antrover said:

Why are you recording in stereo?
Click to expand...

Because that's where the market is.
 
Humans only have 2 ears...so 5.1 is pointless... right? Hmm... actually on a daily basis we are listening to more than 5.1. It's basically an infinit spectrum of sound from a non-directional state. Since we have ears on both sides of our head (left and right)..that's all we need... right? You mean to tell me, I can't hear a sound coming from behind me, or infront me.. I could of swore I can hear things behind me.

Honestly... that is rather a weak statement you made. Movie theaters... use more than 5.1 for sure. CD players do have stereo...but im talking about burning a VCD, or DVD that can be played in 5.1 or greater. Way back in the day...when stereo came out.. people were rather confused why stereo would catch on. It only makes sense now that we think about it. The audio field is trying to recreated how we hear "normal" things on a daily basis through putting more speakers around the listener. I don't see how that is such a wrong thing.
 
Re: Re: Why?

fenix said:
Oh? Last time I checked, you can't buy a 5.1 cd in stores. Last time I checked, cd players aren't equipped to handle 5.1. Last time I checked humans only have two ears, thus stereo.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

You haven't looked very hard. There have been surround sound CD's for 15yrs. They are usually more common with instrumental music.

Not everyone here is just interested in cranking out rock demos. There's a whole world of audio out there.

I'd like a surround setup for doing film mixing. Thanks for the links I'll check those out.
 
There are DVD audios now in all the shops with 5.1 surround. I heard a few demo and I liked it. I thought of going for Nuendo AC-3 package a long time ago, but when I calculated the whole surround setup, :( :( :( :( can't handle the budget. Good luck for the guys trying that out. Let us know how it turns out.
 
Another thing.....CD players are already being superseded by DVD players, and all but the cheaper models are capable of playing back 5.1 audio as well as your old CDs. There is also the Sony/Philips Super Audio CD (SACD) format which boasts dual-layer discs with a conventional Red-Book layer (allowing stereo replay on existing CD players) as well as a high-density layer containing high-resolution stereo and surround tracks using the 1-bit, 2.8MHz sampled DSD format.
 
Antrover- Have you found out if that AC3 encoder plugin works in real time?
 
I don't beleive it works in real time, but then I could be wrong. To monitor a surround mix all you need to do is have 6 outs or how ever many you want coming from your sound card/mixer/etc... Think of the plugin as more of a codec. When you bounce to disk, this is what you select instead of *.wav or *.aiff or whatever you mix down to. In this case, you would mix down to *.ac3 and then burn to a VCD or DVD ....and i'm still trying to figure out that SACD. Since it is dual layer, I'm not sure of the codec used.
 
I understand that part. But then you also need a switching system to choose between the 6 buss monitoring output and the decoded output. Not a big deal but just another detail to consider.

What's the street price on that plugin?
 
I'm not sure what you mean by a switching system.... hmmm.

I kind of do...but not really... haha.

If you could explain in a little more depth that would be awesome.

I can't find a price anywhere for that online at the moment. I actually work at Full Compass...i'll have to take a look. ;-)
 
antrover, I'm in the same boat. I use nuendo, and mix/monitor in 5.1
Final output has always been a problem for me too.
I also have Nuendo's Surround Sound Plug-in which offers some great surround sound mastering tools.
I'm kind of pre-occupied with construction of a new studio righht now, but hopefully, in the next couple of months, I can devote the time necessary for this.
 
antrover said:
I'm not sure what you mean by a switching system.... hmmm.
Click to expand...

You would have two sets of outputs to monitor.

While mixing you would need to monitor 6 analog sends from the soundcard. After using the plugin you would need to monitor 6 analog sends from the surround decoder.

You have 2 inputs going to each speaker so there would need to be some way to switch them. If the surround decoder has digital inputs for the coded signal as well as analog inputs for the seperate channels and a way to switch between them then you are okay. That Delta decoder doesn't look like it has the analog inputs.
 
i havnt read all this so this might have already been mentioned. but why would you need to encode it and then decode it for mixing? You only need a soundcard with 5.1 outputs and hook them to your 5 speakers. And if you wanted to test the encoding and decoding sounds why dont you just encode it with nuendo encoder then decode it with the nuendo decoder??

like i said, i didnt read everything on the thread i might have missed something but im in a hurry so i thought i would just start typing.

danny
 
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