Headphones vs Monitors for Mastering WTF? Oh Hell no!.......never say never ;)

I remember Quad Stereo's came out, it was pretty cool. Deep Purple Machine Head....
Now its Atmos? I think uses 12 speakers...surround twice.

But sounds and manipulation of sounds is the point I think, and then in the end we have our Smart Phones to play it in the car or headphones /earbuds and it sounds good, or like ass, or somewhere in between. Doesnt really matter how its accomplished does it?
, monitors, headphones, cheap auratones or $40,000 monitors.... in Billie's bedroom or Capital Records or Joes Crabshack.

as long as you have enough cowbell ...
 
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musicturtle said:
I just got the Steven Slate VSX system with decicated headphones and software that makes it sound like you are in different listening environments.

Have to say that after a week of listening on them and getting used to it, it is amazing how it sounds like I am in a room and not using headphones.

Looking forward to mixing some stuff with it soon.
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Oh right. How's it going? I dunno whether it's hype or the real deal.
 
Monkey Allen said:
Oh right. How's it going? I dunno whether it's hype or the real deal.
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Pretty good so far with them. I have an EP project I am working on tracking right now, so I will let you know as I start mixing. But the near field monitors in one section sounds just like it's coming from my computer speakers, kinda impressive.

I like it more than the Sonarworks headphone plugin I was using before. They also are adding a systemwide extension to VSX, excited about that so I can listen to recordings outside of my DAW while using the system as well.
 
Has anyone got a good source of info for atmos - without all the hype? As in what is best to encode it, how much it costs and sensible replay systems - I know nothing about it, bar the name.
 
Sam Inglis wrote a reasonably sensible article in SOS

Setting Up An Atmos Mixing Room

Immersive audio is a massive opportunity — if you’re equipped to take it. Here’s what you’ll need to do to make your studio Atmos‑ready.
www.soundonsound.com www.soundonsound.com

I still can't help thinking that much of what we read is being pushed by Dolby's marketing department though.
 
rob aylestone said:
Has anyone got a good source of info for atmos - without all the hype? As in what is best to encode it, how much it costs and sensible replay systems - I know nothing about it, bar the name.
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Yes - the systems can run anywhere from $500 to $45K and above - Amplifier and Receiver start at about $450 and go way up from there - then there is installation - if you do it yourself it's your time - if you pay someone - again $1500 and up depending the complexity of your system - an example is the Klipsch Reference 5.1 Home Theater System which is about $899 - and Onkyo TX-SR494 AV Receiver which is about $499 - those will get you in the door - and it's pretty amazing - but I don't know if it's $1400 worth of amazing - not a whole lot is done in Atmos yet.
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I’ve not been asked by a client yet, but I am wary. I bought a blue ray duplicator, and could generate DVDs in high def, years back, when spinning things were ‘in’. I didn’t have a single client who wanted anything on anything other than ordinary DVD, it went straight to USB delivery, and the pack of blanks is still unopened. Having seen two versions of quad come and go, and then 5:1 stereo hover around, I don’t know.

EDIT
after reading the article is SoS, which is a source I normally accept almost without question, it’s pretty clear that is a rubbish article, compiled from external sources without any form of actual physical testing, and based on their technical experts usual pointedness with advertised claims, “Some well‑installed PVC trunking routes, or simply choosing appropriately coloured cable and cable clips/tacks can make the world of difference. The sonic integrity of those 12 lines is essential, and thus should never be compromised. Buy well‑made cabling with good components.”, is NOT what I expect. Sonic integrity was the alarm bell.
I think that I might have the copyright to a very similar term. In the late 90s I was writing the HND units for an exam board. In one sound unit, I wanted to use a term that was a quality statement, but I couldn’t think of the word, so I put in ‘sonic coherence’ meaning to change it later, I forgot. For five years, and I think the next five years, every student was demonstrating sonic coherence. Not one question was every asked, not one college or uni ever asked what it meant. I made it up.

Buy well made cabling? If you are doing a studio install, with pulled wiring the norm, you make them, not buy them.

if you Google, so much of the article is paraphrased from buzz word containing Dolby copy.

it reads like an advert for it. The usual SoS balance is missing, it’s not a review it’s an advert.
 
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It's hard to say. Some things just take off among the public {vinyl, stereo, cassettes, CDs, flat screen TVs, DVDs, microwaves etc} and some things just don't {8-tracks, minidiscs, Betamax videos etc}. And some things {5.1} have the jury out for an inordinately long deliberation....
 
rob aylestone said:
if you Google, so much of the article is paraphrased from buzz word containing Dolby copy.

it reads like an advert for it. The usual SoS balance is missing, it’s not a review it’s an advert.
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I must admit that I didn't re-read it and the first few lines didn't seem as much of an advert as other articles I've seen.

The other interesting place to look is the Dolby Atmos thread on the Reaper Forum. It isn't all useful but there are a few interesting posts. It seems that the EBU have their own, very similar format which is more open. I wonder if there will be a split - Atmos for films and EBU for broadcast.
 
Never have I seen such an even split between opinions - total fad or essential. What is obvious though is that the people for it are the ones full of flowery language. Some videos were totally devoid of any facts, despite being produced by people in the mastering field, who usually sprout a technobabble of dB, frequencies, harmonics and sampling rates - when it comes to atmos - technicalities are buried under talk of the size of the average heads and hyperbole. Not one of the people for it explained the benefit, just the system. "we do the stereo mix, then we make it amazing" with no info whatsoever. Bizarre stuff. In fact, enough bizarreness to convince me that the entire thing is no doubt good, but buried in mystique and newly invented folk lore. So speaks the sceptic - and interesting to note that a whole new breed of speakers with precise EQ and time alignment has already sprung up. Marketing opportunities everywhere.
 
rob aylestone said:
Never have I seen such an even split between opinions - total fad or essential. What is obvious though is that the people for it are the ones full of flowery language. Some videos were totally devoid of any facts, despite being produced by people in the mastering field, who usually sprout a technobabble of dB, frequencies, harmonics and sampling rates - when it comes to atmos - technicalities are buried under talk of the size of the average heads and hyperbole. Not one of the people for it explained the benefit, just the system. "we do the stereo mix, then we make it amazing" with no info whatsoever. Bizarre stuff. In fact, enough bizarreness to convince me that the entire thing is no doubt good, but buried in mystique and newly invented folk lore. So speaks the sceptic - and interesting to note that a whole new breed of speakers with precise EQ and time alignment has already sprung up. Marketing opportunities everywhere.
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I have chased these fads all over the place, remastered SACD 5.1, DVD Audio, I think stereo is still the best format for music. Unless the format takes off, I think I will hold off.
 
When I start getting customers who come to my basement and hand me thousands of $$ to record them, I'll gladly invest in all that stuff. I haven't had anyone offer be $5 yet, so I'll stick with my measly stereo setup.

Come to think of it, if I used all the speaker that I have in the house from the various stereos, surround sound, 3 sets of monitors etc, I could probably do an Atmos setup. I think I have about 16 speakers of various types.

I wonder if it would be wrong to use the IMF TLS50s for a pair of the "flying" speakers. Weighing in about 55 lbs a pop, they might need some pretty secure bolts to hold them. It would hurt pretty badly if one fell on your head!
 
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I have truss, and I even have a pile of 5" RCF monitors, so I could, but what would be the point? I struggle withy where to pan things on two speakers 7 or more would be crazy for my peace of mind, and I guess the fun from a synth line coming from overhead while the strimgs are left and the odd clacking noise from behind me would run out pretty quick.
 
If you are a Reaper user you have the option of creating at least 64 channels (although I think they may have increased that recently). It is extensively used in surround sound research including for high order Ambisonics. I've stood inside this rig which is fairly impressive but the localisation (for me) wasn't as good as with a pair of Tannoy dual concentrics playing plain old stereo.

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I do most mixing/mastering on headphones because my environment isn't ideal enough for speakers to sound completely accurate.

But I also listen to the song on: my studio monitors, car speakers, wireless earbuds, and laptop speakers just to get a good sense of what most listeners would hear.

If there are common problems for each, that's a simple fix. But if something is an issue on some of them, but not on others, I may make a minor change in-the-middle to make them palatable for all of them.
 
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