One CD with stereo and surround options?

[thebigcheese]

I had an idea for my band to make a really epic album and I thought it would be cool to have a surround option for it. At this point, it's mostly just a thought because I'm not sure what exactly I would do with the extra speakers to make them necessary, but how would I go about making one CD that supports a stereo mix and a separate surround mix of the same material? They do it all the time for movies, but I know that for that there are separate audio tracks, which means it would probably not all fit on one CD unless it was only about 35 minutes long.

 

[JustAboutReal]

you need dvd

Unfortunately CD does not support anything other than stereo

What you need is a DVD... or if you really want that backwards compatibility, you could print it on a 'dual disc' which has standard cd audio on one side, and dvd audio on the other (which supports surround sound).

The problem with that method is you have to mix and master the music twice. Once in stereo, and Once in surround sound.

There are also super-audio cds which I don't know much about but I think they support surround sound as well

 

[thebigcheese]

Well, I figured I would have to mix twice anyway, so that's not an issue.
So I assume that all those cars with Dolby decoders need DVDs for that, right? So we could release it as a 2-disc set or the dual disc... hmmm...

No one really has anything that can play super audio cds, do they? I think I'll pass on that option, but the others seem viable.

 

[Massive Master]

Some stereos (maybe some car stereos) are working with Dolby Pro Logic surround -- It's just taking side information between certain frequencies and putting it to the rears. Doesn't need any special encoding.