5 channel music

[JoeE SP9]

Flame you, of course not. I use a Lexicon for surround sound. The SP-9 and my regular 2 channel setup is used for conventional stereo. Frankly, it sounds better than the Lexicon when it's running in 2 channel mode. I set my SP-9 for unity gain and use it as a pass through for multichannel sources.
This way I get pure 2 channel and surround from the same system. I have no center channel or side speakers. 4 large ESL's and 3 subs are enough. I get real nice bass though.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Personally I agree with Wooch and Criticaster, but I would like to add this as well and clear up a few points that are not quite accurate.

Coming from a audio mixer who has mixed both multichannel and stereo music and film soundtracks, it is infinitely harder to do a stereo mix than a multichannel mix. This is especially so when a lot of instruments, singers, or tracks are in the process. Stereo requires a tremendous amount of EQ to flesh things out in the final mix. There is just no room in stereo to make every instrument clearly rendered, and the soundstage is not wide enough to spread things out without tearing the center of the soundfield. There is no way to accurately render ambience without washing out the dominate mix. There is no way to properly place ambience for envelopment(in back of you) so it is incorrectly placed behind the performer instead. I've recorded several Requiems for several composers. These are very difficult to record, and sometimes have instrument placement instruction desired by the composer. One I did had instructions that required a small choir in the rear, a big one in the front, some brass situated in a left/right side balcony, along with a huge orchestra and organ in the front. My first notion was to use a decca tree left/center/right setup with two spaced onmi on the left and right front of the stage, and two spaced onmi out in the seating area to capture any side and rear performers. This did not work out because the church we recorded in had far too long a reverberation time to keep the recording clean and distinct. The setup that actually worked required far more mikes, and a delay unit to line all of the input to the console accurately in the time domain. The two channel mix was a mess spatially, was unfocused(before post) and required a great deal of EQ to get the same clarity as the 5.1 mix The 5.1 mix was so accurate and clean that it required very little to no EQ, and it exactly portrayed the spatial nature of the live event. You are able to spread the soundfield out to the edges of the speakers and beyond thanks to the center channel. You are able to capture ambience in its proper space, and that is behind you.

There is a difference between a "artistic" studio created mix, and spatially correct live mix. The approach to recording, and listening to them is not the same, and it is not supposed to be.

The attention to calibrating a 5.1 setup is tantamount to accurate reproduction of a 5.1 source, regardless if is music only, or a film soundtrack. Filecat addressed that nicely, and the way his installer calibrated his theater is the old fashion tried and true way I prefer to calibrate but I have the equipment to do that. Not all folks do, so there are really great auto-setup system like Anthem proprietary system, Trinnov, and Audeyssy's system come to mind. The require you to take measurement from several positions in the room(all you have to do is choose the places, and move the mike), and the processor does all of the calculation that flatten the frequency response, set bass crossover points, check phase, and line up the arrival time of the speaker system to the ears. It takes as little as 15 minutes to as long as 30 for the processor to do this, significantly less time than the old fashion way(and a bit less accurate as well, but well into the ballpark).

I am unique in that I learned to record and mix in two channel and multichannel while in school, and I learned from the best of both. The concept and approach is much different between the two. I cut my teeth early in my career mixing film scores in multichannel, so I knew how to use all of my speakers(including the center) very effectively for music. Most music oriented audio engineers gained their experience in two channel only, and never learned the concept of using the rear(or center rear) and center channel effectively. They required a learning curve, and their early projects in multichannel showed. Also a lot of audio engineers have no idea how the ear and brain functions and interprets sound coming from several directions.They created mixes that served to confuse the ears, and distract the listener. Too many swirling audio effects can confuse the brain which detracts from the listening experience. They learned that after the mix was mastered, and it was too late to correct. Artistic multichannel mixes can be very effective as long as they are done carefully and conservatively. Alan Parson's work is a good example of that. I think the learning curve problem has largely been tackled, as there are only a few masters at mixing in multichannel in the recording field, and they are doing the bulk of the multichannel releases out there.

Let's face it DVD-A and SACD have a fork stuck in them(SACD or DSD less so as there are still new releases to the format, and even included on some Bluray music as well). Our next biggest chance for high resolution music whether it be stereo or multichannel lies in the Bluray format. This is further boosted by some significant advances in digital recording, mixing and editing. SACD/DSD never had the editing tools necessary to get the best out of the format. You had to convert the DSD stream to PCM to edit, EQ, and tweak levels and then transfer the audio back to a DSD stream. This killed any audible advantage it had over PCM, and in some cases audibly degrading the signal. Thanks to DXD this is no longer the case, as you can record, mix and edit at 32 or 24/352.8khz bit and sample rates(yes that is double the sample rate of 176.4) and downconvert to any sample rate from 44.1 to 192khz without any audible loss at 192khz and slightly perceptible loss at 96 and 88.2khz(there is significant degradation at 44.1 and 48khz) when compared to the DXD original file and the 192khz file. The Bluray format is capable of supporting 8 channels of 24/192khz audio. Surround Records uses the 7.1 and 5.1 Dts-HD master audio format and does most of the encoding at 24/96khz with an occasional 24/192khz in 5.1. They release both traditional mutlichannel mixes, and tastefully done artistic ones as well. 2L utilizes the DXD format exclusive and has one release that includes a 24/192khz PCM track, a SACD track, a Dolby TrueHD track at 24/192khz, a Dts-HD master audio audio track at 24/192khz, and lossy Dts and Dolby digital tracks. This allows you to compare the different audio formats side by side, and hear a tremendously well done mix as well.

While two channel mixes are still the number one way of delivering audio to the masses, mostly all recording and archiving is done in multichannel now. Most stereo presentations are mixed downs of the multichannel masters, and are not created from scratch like they used to be. It is still optimized and tweaked for the two channel format, but still are fold downs from a multichannel master. Looking forward and evaluating recording and archiving trends, multichannel is the way to go. Two channel is already the red headed stepchild of a multichannel mix, and that is not going to change in the future.

[Mr Peabody]

Personally I agree with Wooch and Criticaster, but I would like to add this as well and clear up a few points that are not quite accurate.

Coming from a audio mixer who has mixed both multichannel and stereo music and film soundtracks, it is infinitely harder to do a stereo mix than a multichannel mix. This is especially so when a lot of instruments, singers, or tracks are in the process. Stereo requires a tremendous amount of EQ to flesh things out in the final mix. There is just no room in stereo to make every instrument clearly rendered, and the soundstage is not wide enough to spread things out without tearing the center of the soundfield. There is no way to accurately render ambience without washing out the dominate mix. There is no way to properly place ambience for envelopment(in back of you) so it is incorrectly placed behind the performer instead. I've recorded several Requiems for several composers. These are very difficult to record, and sometimes have instrument placement instruction desired by the composer. One I did had instructions that required a small choir in the rear, a big one in the front, some brass situated in a left/right side balcony, along with a huge orchestra and organ in the front. My first notion was to use a decca tree left/center/right setup with two spaced onmi on the left and right front of the stage, and two spaced onmi out in the seating area to capture any side and rear performers. This did not work out because the church we recorded in had far too long a reverberation time to keep the recording clean and distinct. The setup that actually worked required far more mikes, and a delay unit to line all of the input to the console accurately in the time domain. The two channel mix was a mess spatially, was unfocused(before post) and required a great deal of EQ to get the same clarity as the 5.1 mix The 5.1 mix was so accurate and clean that it required very little to no EQ, and it exactly portrayed the spatial nature of the live event. You are able to spread the soundfield out to the edges of the speakers and beyond thanks to the center channel. You are able to capture ambience in its proper space, and that is behind you.

There is a difference between a "artistic" studio created mix, and spatially correct live mix. The approach to recording, and listening to them is not the same, and it is not supposed to be.

The attention to calibrating a 5.1 setup is tantamount to accurate reproduction of a 5.1 source, regardless if is music only, or a film soundtrack. Filecat addressed that nicely, and the way his installer calibrated his theater is the old fashion tried and true way I prefer to calibrate but I have the equipment to do that. Not all folks do, so there are really great auto-setup system like Anthem proprietary system, Trinnov, and Audeyssy's system come to mind. The require you to take measurement from several positions in the room(all you have to do is choose the places, and move the mike), and the processor does all of the calculation that flatten the frequency response, set bass crossover points, check phase, and line up the arrival time of the speaker system to the ears. It takes as little as 15 minutes to as long as 30 for the processor to do this, significantly less time than the old fashion way(and a bit less accurate as well, but well into the ballpark).

I am unique in that I learned to record and mix in two channel and multichannel while in school, and I learned from the best of both. The concept and approach is much different between the two. I cut my teeth early in my career mixing film scores in multichannel, so I knew how to use all of my speakers(including the center) very effectively for music. Most music oriented audio engineers gained their experience in two channel only, and never learned the concept of using the rear(or center rear) and center channel effectively. They required a learning curve, and their early projects in multichannel showed. Also a lot of audio engineers have no idea how the ear and brain functions and interprets sound coming from several directions.They created mixes that served to confuse the ears, and distract the listener. Too many swirling audio effects can confuse the brain which detracts from the listening experience. They learned that after the mix was mastered, and it was too late to correct. Artistic multichannel mixes can be very effective as long as they are done carefully and conservatively. Alan Parson's work is a good example of that. I think the learning curve problem has largely been tackled, as there are only a few masters at mixing in multichannel in the recording field, and they are doing the bulk of the multichannel releases out there.

Let's face it DVD-A and SACD have a fork stuck in them(SACD or DSD less so as there are still new releases to the format, and even included on some Bluray music as well). Our next biggest chance for high resolution music whether it be stereo or multichannel lies in the Bluray format. This is further boosted by some significant advances in digital recording, mixing and editing. SACD/DSD never had the editing tools necessary to get the best out of the format. You had to convert the DSD stream to PCM to edit, EQ, and tweak levels and then transfer the audio back to a DSD stream. This killed any audible advantage it had over PCM, and in some cases audibly degrading the signal. Thanks to DXD this is no longer the case, as you can record, mix and edit at 32 or 24/352.8khz bit and sample rates(yes that is double the sample rate of 176.4) and downconvert to any sample rate from 44.1 to 192khz without any audible loss at 192khz and slightly perceptible loss at 96 and 88.2khz(there is significant degradation at 44.1 and 48khz) when compared to the DXD original file and the 192khz file. The Bluray format is capable of supporting 8 channels of 24/192khz audio. Surround Records uses the 7.1 and 5.1 Dts-HD master audio format and does most of the encoding at 24/96khz with an occasional 24/192khz in 5.1. They release both traditional mutlichannel mixes, and tastefully done artistic ones as well. 2L utilizes the DXD format exclusive and has one release that includes a 24/192khz PCM track, a SACD track, a Dolby TrueHD track at 24/192khz, a Dts-HD master audio audio track at 24/192khz, and lossy Dts and Dolby digital tracks. This allows you to compare the different audio formats side by side, and hear a tremendously well done mix as well.

While two channel mixes are still the number one way of delivering audio to the masses, mostly all recording and archiving is done in multichannel now. Most stereo presentations are mixed downs of the multichannel masters, and are not created from scratch like they used to be. It is still optimized and tweaked for the two channel format, but still are fold downs from a multichannel master. Looking forward and evaluating recording and archiving trends, multichannel is the way to go. Two channel is already the red headed stepchild of a multichannel mix, and that is not going to change in the future.

Who is this masked man?

[Feanor]

Who is this masked man?

There we have it. The sage has spoken to provide some rationale for what I've heard with my own ears from M/C: a greater sense of presence and realism than stereo can possibly deliver.

[poppachubby]

Hey Peabody, check out a CD copy of Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". The psychadelic break in the middle of the song comes through 5.1 in a way 2 channel could never do....the guitar effect "spins" around the room from speaker to speaker...killer...

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Who is this masked man?

The same masked man you have known(and hated) for years LOLOLOL.