to the extent that surround is bullshit...

  • Thread starter Thread starter dobro
  • Start date Start date

surround is bullshit, right?

  • yes! surround is wonderful! I always endorse the latest techology, no matter what...

    Votes: 5 3.8%

  • yes! surround is great! It multiplies artistic possibilties by a factor of 3

    Votes: 45 34.1%

  • ho hum - now we've got 5 or 6 speakers worth of boy bandz in the room

    Votes: 32 24.2%

  • there's a guy somewhere who gets paid to invent this horsehshit and the amazing thing is, people hav

    Votes: 50 37.9%
  • Total voters
    132
C. 1960s: "Stereo is a gimmick."

I'm sure there must have been a lot of people dissing stereo when it was first introduced. In the end it's had over 30 years to be developed and get done right. Certainly seems likely to me that surround will eventually find its place in the music (and not just visual) world. It just needs some time for all the kids in the candy shop to get over the novelty and start exploiting its nuances. O.k., so maybe you haven't ever heard music popping out of different points in space....but wouldn't it be great if it were done right? I can imagine some Eno and Fripp recordings that, if done right, would be downright religious experiences (as someone here described Dark Side of the Moon).

The only thing to figure out is how to define "right" in the world of surround. There just hasn't been enough time or interest to pioneer the aesthetics of the medium.

I'll bet a dollar to doughnut that the key to surround's credibility will be nuance and subtlety. Kinda like many elements of stereo. Non?
 
Its a pretty sharp learning curve. I worked with live quadraphonic sound for years in the '70's, so I made every mistake possible already, and its kinda fun to see / hear everyone make those same mistakes now (secret little cruel streak).
One example is the endless discussions that have taken place within pro audio circles regarding "collapsing" a surround mix to stereo. Only now its suddenly dawning on some people that they are different things, and you cannot do a collapse with a good surround mix.

One of my major 'peaves' with the current situation is the standard consumer surround system, which often has a"good" L & R speaker, a medium center speaker, and a pair of crappy little rear L & R's. This severely hampers creativity when mixing in surround
 
So, let's get this straight - surround is primarily exploited for movies, and because of that, you get compressed audio on DVD-video, and you get crappy playback systems for joe consumer because he don't give a shit much about the sound.

So even if you go to the expense (not inconsiderable) and the trouble (now, what was that you were just saying about a 'sharp learning curve') to get your sound either to DVD-audio (5 channels of superhigh resolution) or DVD-video (2 channels of superhigh audio resolution PLUS VIDEO!), it'll still only get played most likely on a crap pot playback system in someone's living room.

Second question: what happens to surround when you play it through headphones or a diskman? Does it sound as okay as when you play stereo mixes through a mono player?
 
Give it some time

Dobro,

Would you agree that you might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Seems that the technology just needs more development. I read Sjoko's message to mean that it's still not where it could be equipment wise, but it surely could have a future. All new technologies take time to mature.

Not trying to flame or diss or anything like that....I am, after all, quite new to these things. Surround seems pretty exciting to me.
 
dobro said:
So, let's get this straight - surround is primarily exploited for movies, and because of that, you get compressed audio on DVD-video, and you get crappy playback systems for joe consumer because he don't give a shit much about the sound.
Click to expand...

Yes, absolutely right. And isn't the sound you get on DVD video a million times batter than that on VHS or PAL??
And what does Joe consumer listen to at the moment?


Second question: what happens to surround when you play it through headphones or a diskman? Does it sound as okay as when you play stereo mixes through a mono player? [/B]
Click to expand...


It depends on the format and the encoding. Without geting into the crazy details, say you are sending L & R from your DVD player into your surround system. Thats 2 channels of digital audio, plus encoding. If you play it in stereo the signal will be stereo (collapse to stereo).

There are to many formats now. This is a big problem which does not serve the consumer, as people are waiting to see WHAT to put their stuff on, so availability is limited. Also, for us its a nightmare, as we would need to invest many tens of thousands in varying types of encoders in order to satisfy all needs. Just one type of encoder can cost up to $20.000, and sometimes this is just for the box, then you have to pay an annual licence fee as well. Great "fun" - especially when you have a client who wants the material delivered in 4 formats and does not quite get it that each format really needs a different approach, a different mix and is a different mastering job.

What will happen in the near future is a much better solution, where you buy one disk, which contains everything you need. If you put it in a regular CD player, the CD player will locate and play the CD stereo files on the disk. If you put it in a DVD A player, the player will locate the high resolution audio files and play those, put it in a DVD player etc...........

For most of our projects now, I have to take surround and different formats into consideration when I'm tracking. This means for instance, where I might have used 2 room mics on a trapset in the past, now I'm using 4, spaced differently. Even if a project is not released in a surround format now, if its successful it might be in the future, they might want to re-mix for surround, and in that case all the data is there to do it right.

One of the projects I'm planning currently is a drum clinic video / DVD with Aynsley Dunbar, which I'm planning to record in surround, which, as all the sound will be drums only, will be fun :)
 
shit

ahh, wonderful,
now I'm gonna have to spend hours tweaking the damned sound till i'm happy.
*mumbles*
man this always happens, new tech comes out, I keep ajusting eq, and wonderful now they're letting me pan way more, watch me go. shit.
 
MDA - well, if surround takes off, one effect it will have is to put the distance back in between pro studios and homers. Recently, with cheaper gear, that distance got real small or vanished completely, and we've got people doing some or all of their recording and mixing at home. With surround (more expensive and more difficult), it'll increase the chances of people taking their music into a pro studio if they want it done in surround.

Sjoko - "What will happen in the near future is a much better solution, where you buy one disk, which contains everything you need. If you put it in a regular CD player, the CD player will locate and play the CD stereo files on the disk. If you put it in a DVD A player, the player will locate the high resolution audio files and play those, put it in a DVD player etc..........."

Excellent. And right now, you can play any kind of disk on a DVD player, right - CD, VCD, DVD...

Jason - I'm being slightly provocative here in order to tease out people's thinking on this one. Sometimes the wheels of industry and technology turn and give us things we don't need. The drug companies, for example, continue to put out new drugs every day that we don't need. This phenomenon's useless or harmful. I'm wondering (and getting people to wonder with me) how much of surround is an artistically useful tool, and how much of it is just companies trying to sell us the latest WOW! technology. From where I'm sitting, stereo is valid because it adds realism to the sound, but surround's bullshit to the extent that it takes recorded sound into a dimension that doesn't exist in real life, or hardly ever. Of course, most pop music doesn't exist anywhere except on the recording, so surround's just an extension of 'manufactured music'. I'm not condemning surround completely, I'm putting it on a scale somewhere. And I think there's a lot of bullshit in it - I think it's primarily technologically-driven, not need-driven, and that its complexity outstrips its utility.
 
Dobro........you haven't heard good surround sound as yet...
Its gooooood. Start saving up for a ticket to Pink Floyds last ever tour in 2005, its going to be in mindblowing surround, just as in the good'ol'days.
 
Well BOSE seems to think they have the consumer's answer with their LIFESTYLE system. But that thing looks like a piece of crap to me and the expense is insane. I could do better, i'm sure, with the poverty gear i own now. However, i would love to hear what you come up with sjoko. :)

t
 
Is anyone here old enough to have been to a Pink Floyd or Golden Earring gig in the '70's?
 
im hoping for money so i can continue research on inventing the pocketbook light.
when my wife opens her pocketbook in the dark, she cant see. so, if i put a light in it, she'll be able to find her cigarettes and bubble gum.
anybody want to invest?
surround sound.....
imsurrounded by music!!!!!
 
golden earing

well I 'm old enough but only just and my big sister would have to had taken me . I got to tell you that I think that the earing blow the floyd out of the water but I'm not one for atmosphereics more raw energy. so long as its moving me 1 speaker or 200 I dont care am i just to lazy or missing the point?
 
In home theatre circles the bose systems are a big joke. Totally lacking in midbass and priced twice as high as othe systems that do the job correctly.

Most audiophiles choose the polk system or the yamaha. if you feel you must hide the speakers.

By the way bang and olfson is also a joke. dont buy those either.

I bought martin logans and dont regret it.:)
 
No but I did see them in the eighties, Golden earring wasnt in surround though, They were at the local ammusment park and It was grad nite. Good time though.
 
They stopped doing surround in '76, Floyd the same, it got to expensive
 
That was well after my time, but if they did use any, it was likely just for effect, and not full surround
 
Why Surround?

Because nowadays its far BETTER than stereo.

Stereo in a real listening room bears little resemblance to live sound field, so the "truth" of stereo is not an argument.

Surround not only gives you the ability to more precisely place sounds in space but it also gives you much more dynamic range. Instead 2 amps and 2 speakers you have 6 amps and 6 speakers (3 front, 2 rear, 1 sub) to distribute your mix.

It's true that the surround sound quality in the past sucked. Dolby encoding is the pits. But now there's DVD-Audio which can deliver 60 minutes of 6 channel 24 bit / 96 kHz audio using bit-for-bit Meridian Losses Compression - or any other mix of channels and bit rates you might choose. You prefer 2 channels of 24 bit / 192 kHz ? Go for it! DVD-Audio lets you (but, my 6 channel mix [when I can afford it] will still be more dynamic). This leaves CD audio in the dust! :)

Modern surround sound is not a gimmick. It's superior.

The only reason it might not take off is if it turns out be too expensive for the average consumer.

barefoot
 
Surround in movies is a bit kitch in my opinion.It can be a giggle in those sci-fi blockbusters and thats cool,but really,go out of the visual stage in a "serious" movie and it just gets plain distracting(was it that git sitting in row G making those noises or was it in the film!)
Until we get surround vision......
 
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