Producing in Surround sound formats.

[V0RT3X]

I am very interested in producing ambient tracks in surround sound. I have a small idea where to start, however I have very little experience in this.

Anyone here have any experience? Ideas?

Cheers,
V0RT3X

[Negative Spectrum]

I've done some work in surround sound, an interesting learning experience for definite. Waves have a great set of plugins for this which i've used http://www.waves.com/plugins/surround

[windspace]

I would be interested in trying this as well. It seems like an idea perfectly suited for ambient production! I'm sure that it would be best to work with a DAW setup that created the separate surround channels. If you want to try to convert some existing 2-ch stereo tracks to surround you could try this VST tool:

http://www.stevethomson.ca/vi/

I believe that read that u-he Uhbiks have surround output capability as well, but I don't own them and you'd have to check that out.

[aoVI]

So two speakers aren't good enough for ya, huh?

Back when I was coming up, all our speakers were made from rocks and sand, and we were grateful. We listened to them uphill in the snow too.

[windspace]

Did ya havta start em on fire when ya got there too, to stay warm? Hard to burn rocks n sand, I know...

[V0RT3X]

Hey it's always fun to try new things :mrcool:

[GaryG]

Paul White (editor of Sound On Sound magazine) seems quite a fan of surround, a few good articles in SoS over the years, probably up on their site (soundonsound.com)

[MetaDronos]

Please, check these plugins: http://acousmodules.free.fr/

[windspace]

Please, check these plugins: http://acousmodules.free.fr/

Thank you for the link. Very useful looking freeware and shareware apps here. Win & OSX.

Also, reading the pages there I discovered something I had over looked in Reaper ; "ReaSurround (Cockos)". If you are using Reaper v4 or later, the ReaSurround effect is already at your disposal. Allows output in stereo, quadrophonic, octophonic, octophonic box, 5.1, 7.1, 9.1, 5.1 ITU-R, 7.1 ITU-R and 9.1 ITU-R.

[V0RT3X]

Hmm very good to know about Reaper!

I'll have to look into this DAW as it is a much cheaper solution than Cubase7 which is where i was sort of aimed.

I also realized that it is a fairly expensive thing to do so I probably won't be getting into it anytime soon. Perhaps someday when i get the money to buy a decent surround sound monitoring setup.


Thanks for all the feedback so far guys!

[phoenstorm]

Uhbiks definitely come with multi-channel support, how that works exactly is another story...

[Codehead]

I have done a couple tests. You can take 6 independent channels and mux them into flac. The hard part was getting them onto a media my home theater can handle. I know Minnetonka Disc Welder bronze will make DVD Audio 5.1 discs, but I would rather make DTS or Bluray HD discs. Seems a like a lot of money and work for a medium that doesn't have an internet delivery apparatus (Soundcloud, Bandcamp).

I record 8 independent channels from my modular and it would be fun to get them all bouncing around.

Maybe I will revisit it again next year.

[Tolubai]

I'm was tinkering with the idea of producing in Surround Sound too. But then I hit upon the Binaural Audio and thought
these days more people are listening music with headphones/earphones and in this case would be this method
the Gold Standard to create a very realistic listening experience.

But of course for Soundtrack and if you want to
use the Subbass as essential element then Surround Sound is the ne plus Ultra.

A few days I opened a Thread about Binaural recording at Forum/Sound Design/ Binaural recording/mixing.
there you can get an Impression what I'm talking about.