Surround sound?

Lonewolf14

Lonewolf14

New member
Hello,

I was wondering if anyone knows if possible to create a sound that is heard like it's coming from behind. Or with full 3d spectrum for that matter. Is that using some special feature?
Can you achieve that effect in an audio DAW? Or is it just something recorded in 3d?
Thanks!
 
It's fairly easy to do. If you duplicate a track, pan both tracks hard left an right then invert polarity on one, the sound will appear in the rear of a surround system. Some DAWs have dedicated surround panning features that will do this for you with a joystick style control.
 
Lonewolf14 said:
I was wondering if anyone knows if possible to create a sound that is heard like it's coming from behind. Or with full 3d spectrum for that matter. Is that using some special feature?
Can you achieve that effect in an audio DAW? Or is it just something recorded in 3d?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
It's not an Effect - it's a format - AFAIK Most DAWs have this built in - Logic does - I can actually go to 7.1 - but you have to have the speakers and have your mix configured.
 
Reminds me... not much help to you... but my old Roland VS-840 had some cool multi-effects built in. One of which (it was their proprietary "RSS" processing) was this huge swirling BIG 3D reverb/delay effect that when listening in headphones would damn near give me vertigo. It did work when using a set of stereo speakers - but you had to sit just right in the stereo field to have the best impact. It was really cool as an effect - although I never found any practical use for it in the music that I was doing.

They made a rack processor just prior to the VS line coming out. Sound on Sound talks about that here:

Roland RSS10

Paul White goes beyond the final frontier with Roland's latest 3D sound processor.
www.soundonsound.com www.soundonsound.com
 
Reaper now has a full surround sound plugin that lets you place different tracks in different places. Lots of videos out there on this...

 
I once went to a Gentle Giant gig.
There was one number that had a violin part flying around the audience.
Speakers at the back of the hall, and some clever fader manipulation.
 
You could also try using binaural recording - although you need to listen on headphones to gain the proper effect. It doesn't work for everyone but I found it convincingly portrayed sound from behind when I tried it.
 
It also goes wrong live - I remember well the first try at a big orchestral well known live show, and the idea was to pan sounds round the arena. In a small place it was wonderful - amazing, in fact - but when it moved to a huge arena, the time delay between the four big clusters worked terribly and it was slightly vomit encouraging. I'm wondering if I should start to experiment?
 
I've try the invert phase technique and it already makes a huge diference on simple sounds. like guitar licks on background. Researching some ambient music sound feel to make sound tracks. Kinda looking for wide sound. Panning hard to achieve stereo effects doesn' t quite creates the effect i'm looking.

Btw what is binaural recording? Like a stereo recording?
 
Unless you're specific about targeting just surround-sound listening setups, I'd suggest you include a little mono-compatibility testing, just to see how your "phase invert technique" mixes translate. Just my [inflation-adjusted] .2¢
 
Binaural recording is a special type of stereo recording. It involves something like a dummy head with mics at the location of the ears. The idea is to simulate the exact delay and phase differences between your ears, which is how you recognize the direction of a sound.

The issue is that it doesn't really translate well to speakers, the technique is designed for use with headphones or earbuds.
 
keith.rogers said:
Unless you're specific about targeting just surround-sound listening setups, I'd suggest you include a little mono-compatibility testing, just to see how your "phase invert technique" mixes translate. Just my [inflation-adjusted] .2¢
Click to expand...

Yes, i'm experimenting adding an extra channel sutile. Still mainly using normal stereo field.

TalismanRich said:
Binaural recording is a special type of stereo recording. It involves something like a dummy head with mics at the location of the ears. The idea is to simulate the exact delay and phase differences between your ears, which is how you recognize the direction of a sound.

The issue is that it doesn't really translate well to speakers, the technique is designed for use with headphones or earbuds.
Click to expand...

Makes scense I will try. thanks
 
bouldersoundguy said:
It's fairly easy to do. If you duplicate a track, pan both tracks hard left an right then invert polarity on one, the sound will appear in the rear of a surround system. Some DAWs have dedicated surround panning features that will do this for you with a joystick style control.
Click to expand...
Yes a big part of it is about messing with the phase to create that binaural effect. The above quote is an oversimplification of just throwing things completely out of phase (or reversing the polarity), but that's not what's happening in real life when a sound is coming behind you. Yes there is a phase difference, but it's more like slipping one of those panned tracks a few milliseconds to replicate the delay time between ears (also called the haas effect). Phase and polarity get so confusing that I made a youtube video to explain and clarify it. Check it out: Understand Phase in Under 6 Minutes.

But also to make it sound like it's coming from behind you need to replicate the filtering of your outer ears. This is called Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) (and that's the wikipedia link). There are some plugins that will do this for you to make things sound like they are coming from behind you while on headphones for example. This is also the concept and technology behind all of those virtual studio mixing on headphones like Slate VSX. This is also how they do 3d audio in games. When you turn your head or move in the game the level difference, phase difference and HRTF of the audio objects all change to change the sonic position of the object.
 
theDAWstudio said:
Yes a big part of it is about messing with the phase to create that binaural effect. The above quote is an oversimplification of just throwing things completely out of phase (or reversing the polarity), but that's not what's happening in real life when a sound is coming behind you. Yes there is a phase difference, but it's more like slipping one of those panned tracks a few milliseconds to replicate the delay time between ears (also called the haas effect). Phase and polarity get so confusing that I made a youtube video to explain and clarify it. Check it out: Understand Phase in Under 6 Minutes.

But also to make it sound like it's coming from behind you need to replicate the filtering of your outer ears. This is called Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) (and that's the wikipedia link). There are some plugins that will do this for you to make things sound like they are coming from behind you while on headphones for example. This is also the concept and technology behind all of those virtual studio mixing on headphones like Slate VSX. This is also how they do 3d audio in games. When you turn your head or move in the game the level difference, phase difference and HRTF of the audio objects all change to change the sonic position of the object.
Click to expand...
It's not an "oversimplification" because A. surround sound is not binaural and B. my target audience probably doesn't have an Atmos studio.

Processing for Haas effect, pinna effect, head shading etc. are all kind of beside the point on a basic surround system because the listener is hearing the playback with their actual head which will do all those things in physical reality. They don't need to be simulated with processing (thought they can be by someone with the proper setup, e.g. an Atmos system).

I don't find phase and polarity confusing, though many seem to. I watched the video and basically agree with just about everything, though I think "reverse the phase" (3:49) might not have been the best wording. I would have said "invert the polarity." If I'm talking about phase, I say "shift." And then there's group delay, which is a whole other level.

The OP just wanted to send things to the rear speakers. I offered a simple "roll your own" method and mentioned that many DAWs have built in surround panning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top