Surround Sound. Yes or No?

[Lunch Money]

I wouldn't use surround in my day-to-day music. When I go see a band (rock or orchestral), they're more or less "in front" of me. I want a similar experience with my music, for now. I'm open to change, and when I hear my first wicked-awesome surround track that uses it tastefully, I might be swayed the other way.

For now, I'm having a tricky enough time in stereo!

[Meffy]

but dont stereoscopic images let you see in 3d? they're only two picture. same with the red and blue channels in 3d pics.

An astute observation! It's pseudo-3D. Lots of fun though.

As it happens, I'm a stereo photography nut -- collect View-Masters and reels, 1950s 35mm stereo cameras and viewers, plus Oliver Wendell Holmes-design stereoscopes and view cards from the 1800s and early 1900s. (My oldest view was made in 1874, and they were made even earlier than that.) They're impressive, but you can't "look behind" things, so to speak.

What I want is a solid stereo traverse bar for my Nikon D70. That would let me take stereo photos of landscapes and other non-moving things. But good ones long enough to be useful for long shots are expeennnnsive... Ah well, after the monitors, maybe. :-D

Meffy

[shamann]

I have to admit, I don't get this surround sound music thing, either. When I can have an enjoyable music experience listening to a mono transistor radio or earbuds and a mp3 player, do I really need n speakers just to get that extra 1% of immersive quality.

Always seemed to me to be either just one more way for big business to sell us the old product (see the new NIN re-issue) or more audiophile wank. I know there's no arguing with those types, so I won't bother, but fractional sound improvements for thousands of dollars (man, I really gotta get some of those carbon-plated crossconnects for a $150 a foot) just isn't one of my priorities.

Most music rarely needs to be physically emersive, the emersion was supposed to be mental as far as I knew.

Bring it on for clubs, theatres and art spaces, I guess, but I see little use beyond.

Cheers,
Steve

[CypherOne]

see that ear seems too big for the mouse, I bet he gets deafened by loud noises.

Fortunately (I suppose) it's just the external meatus, with appropriately formed cartilage. No sensory apparatus, just a sort of waveguide.

Meffy

well that's even worse, being lumbered with such a massive ear you have to carry round everyhwhere and the damn thing doesn't even work...

[Distortion]

Stereo is fine for my tastes. I don't see (or would that be hear) the advantage of 5.1 in my music.
Like Lunch Money mentioned, I have a hard enough time getting stereo under control. 5.1 surround would fry my brain.

[Steven West]

No.

I mean, I would 'like to' maybe someday fool around with some hardcore IDM postioning - a blip on speaker 5, a fart on speaker 3, a zap on 4 and so on... But I get the feeling that even people WITH this fancy ass 5.1 DvD Home Theater crappola so they can hear 'Dude, Where's My Car' like they were right in the middle of it - probably don't have the best arrangement/environment for their speakers to begin with?

Now if we go back to 1975's 'Earthquake' starring Charlton Heston, that's was filmmed in 'Sense-O-Rama'. Now there's something that should be brought back!

[fake]

Its just a big con to get you to buy more stuff you don't need.

The main problem with surround sound is it is very position sensitive and creates a lot of clutter. ie extra speakers that have to be positioned corectly to get any benefit. In a large area like a cinema it works a lot better.

Your two ears work in surround sound anyway when you listen in stereo.

fake

[tetraplan]

I saw Boca Raton do a surround set (not really, it was quadraphonic) last summer, and for his music -lower case electro-acoustic stuff- it worked really well.
Not sure how well this would work on a recording, though. Some tracks, sure, others might just fall apart.
I would certainly consider it for performances.

Groet, Erik

[Teksonik]

I use a psuedo surround system in my studio now. It's really just two stereo systems one in front and one behind. I do enjoy being emersed in sound but it makes mixing for a standard stereo system tricky. I could see experimenting with true 5.1 surround for music. Having a bass line travel through you from the front left speaker to the right rear speaker etc. Or having some sounds just coming from behind,things like that. Trouble is that many surround systems don't have the same size/quality speakers for front and rear so that bassline traveling from a 12" front speaker to an 8" rear is going to lose some balls along the way. Still I think experimenting in 5.1 or 6.1 might be artistically rewarding and open up new avenues of expression.

[nuisance sonore]

Surround is ok for movies special effect and stuff, but it has no business in music. It totally detract and distract from the musical experience; in fact, it never was meant to be used for music, always was for sound effect. Even in movies I much prefer a good stereo imaging (or mono would be better than bad stereo imaging) for the music track, and keep the surround for special effect.

[Teksonik]

Surround is ok for movies special effect and stuff, but it has no business in music. It totally detract and distract from the musical experience; in fact, it never was meant to be used for music, always was for sound effect. Even in movies I much prefer a good stereo imaging (or mono would be better than bad stereo imaging) for the music track, and keep the surround for special effect.

I'm of the opinion that it can enhance the musical experience.
I once attented a demonstration by Bo Tomlin of DX7 fame where he had several speakers set up around the room. He had a TX816 rack which was just a bunch of DX7's in a rackmount. He had different patches and sounds traveling around the room and panning back and forth front and rear. It was a really cool experience. I think experimentation in this area could yield some quite interesting and pleasing results.

[shamann]

I'm of the opinion that it can enhance the musical experience.
I once attented a demonstration by Bo Tomlin of DX7 fame where he had several speakers set up around the room. He had a TX816 rack which was just a bunch of DX7's in a rackmount. He had different patches and sounds traveling around the room and panning back and forth front and rear. It was a really cool experience. I think experimentation in this area could yield some quite interesting and pleasing results.

I don't know, sounds a bit too much like Lazer Floyd down at the planetarium for my tastes.

Other than the neato factor, not sure how it does anything for music. I'm sure it has performance uses, and it's probably par for the course with sound installations, but just msuic listening I don't know so much.

They did experiments on positioning of performers in the 60s and 70s, where they were trying to redefine the relationship between audience and performer by having the performers play behind or beside or within the audience. One of the reasons suspected by psycho-acousticians for the failure of the experiments was that humans have been trained for millenia to consider sounds not directly in front of them as threats. Like, hey, what's that rustling in the bush over yonder?

So moving the source of the music around tended to turn the audience off. Maybe in limited situations that would be a good thing, but in most cases not the desired result.

[BONES]

That said, if the music's no good, no amount of spatial tomfoolery will help make it more interesting.

And there's the rub. The majority of DVD players do a shithouse job of playing audio and the majority of home theatre systems are in no way designed for accurate, or even entertaining, reproduction of music. To get the same sound quality from a 5.1 system that I have in my Au$900 stereo system I would need to spend around 10 times that amount. I'm sorry but I will always take quality over glossy gimmicks, that's why I use ORION.

[Sepheritoh]

Would you or do you use Surround Sound in your trax.

I'd be interested to hear yout opininons, what kind of music, etc etc.

Im not talking about film scores, just general music.


Thanks

I would love to. I like surround music if done properly. Close your eyes and imagine you're in space. There are really so few people out there who can do it properly but it will catch on soon.

[nuffink]

Fantasound
Quadraphonic
QS
SQ
CD-4
QUAD-8
Ambisonics
Dolby Surround
Dolby Pro Logic
Dolby Digital
DTS

BUY MORE SPEAKERS. BUY MORE AMPS. BUY MORE EARS.

CONSUME.

They've been throwing it at Joe public since the 1940's.
This time he's listening with all his 5.1 ears.