Whos doing Surround Sound

[Paul]

Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
doing so?

Thanks in advance,

Paul
VRSonic

[EganMedia]

>Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
>sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
>doing so?

I've been doing a good bit of surround mixing in the past couple of months: a
couple of music DVDs and some produced material for live sound playback. I use
a D&R Cinemix 5.1 console in concert with a Pro Tools HD3 rig, because that's
what I have on hand. So I guess I you could say those are my favorite tools.
I'd love a Brauner/SPL Area 51 mic array and six Crane Song Trakkers, but
that's not in the cards right now. The Waves 360 toolkit is on the short list
of stuff I'm going to buy as soon as I can.


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

[EganMedia]

>Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
>sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
>doing so?

I've been doing a good bit of surround mixing in the past couple of months: a
couple of music DVDs and some produced material for live sound playback. I use
a D&R Cinemix 5.1 console in concert with a Pro Tools HD3 rig, because that's
what I have on hand. So I guess I you could say those are my favorite tools.
I'd love a Brauner/SPL Area 51 mic array and six Crane Song Trakkers, but
that's not in the cards right now. The Waves 360 toolkit is on the short list
of stuff I'm going to buy as soon as I can.


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

[Paul]

>
> Joe Egan
> EMP
> Colchester, VT
> www.eganmedia.com

Thanks Joe. Are you mac or PC. Also will you be at AES?

thanks

Paul

[EganMedia]

>Thanks Joe. Are you mac or PC. Also will you be at AES?
>

Mac. And alas, no. I have work today and tonight, family obligations
tomorrow, and an early and full day on Monday. It wasn't worth it to try to
make the trip down and back on Sunday. This is the first time in ten years
I've missed the NY AES. I can't wait to hear how it went.

Have a blast!


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

[ChrisCoaster]

(Paul) wrote in message >...
> Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
> sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
> doing so?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Paul
> VRSonic
________________________________
To me, surround-sound in a live setting is superfluous. The simple
reason is that indoor, partially enclosed, and outdoor venues all
contribute their own brand of ambience. Panning things around and
behind the audience sounds unnatural in such a setting, and will only
distract them from what's going on center-stage. (But I'm not one of
those "Run live PA in mono only" pundits - I do advocate tasteful use
of stereo or L-C-R panning for realism).

-ChrisCoaster

[Denny Conn]

Paul wrote:
>
> Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
> sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
> doing so?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Paul
> VRSonic

I got set up for it, but in my market there's just no need/budget for
it. I'm back to a stereo setup now.

------->Denny
--
Life begins at 60 - 1.060, that is.

Reply to denny_dot_g_dot_conn_at_ci_dot_eugene_dot_or_dot_u s

[Jay - atldigi]

In article >,
(Paul) wrote:

> Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
> sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
> doing so?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Paul
> VRSonic

The mastering room is set up for it but there's very little work for
surround in music unless you're one of the very few companies that
specialise in that and only that. I still do occasional post gigs and
nearly all of those are surround, if not 5.1, at least LCRS. I've used a
Harrison series 12 (Awesome!) Neve Logic 2, Studer D950, Sony DMX-R100,
Digidesign Control 24, a Neve VR60 with a Martinsound Multimaxx
monitoring solution, and a SSL 9000J with the 959 surround panel. Pro
Tools was involved every time.

The Harrison really rocked. The Sony, Studer, Neve Logic 2, and Control
24 all got the job done with minimal fuss. The 9000J and VR60 had to be
forced. Since they don't have LCR panners, LFE feeds, or divergence
control, they aren't really suited to surround work. You have to
creatively set up busses and auxes to fake it, and it works, and could
work on any console, but it's not really designed for it. The new SSL
XL9000K adds a switchable LCR panner and this really makes a big
difference. It's not nearly as well suited to surround as a Harrison
series 12 or MPC, or SSL's Avant, or Neve's DFC, but it's certainly
workable. Oh, and I used a Lafont console on one film as well... at
least it had LCR panning...

Pro Tools has been pretty good about surround since version 5.1, but
it's really just a source machine if you have a console, unless you are
using the Control 24 or Pro Control. You could actually manage a
surround project with just the Pro Tools rig and a surround monitoring
solution, but it's more pleasant with a console of some sort, unless
you're just cutting FX for a surorund project. Most major DAWs now have
some degree of surround support, with Nuendo really putting forth an
effort to make it a priority.

As for a brief tour of outboard, the t.c. system 6000, Lexicon 960, and
Sintefex FX 8000 are all well suited for surround. The Sintefex has EQ,
dynamics, analog signal path simulation, and surround reverb. It's best
known for it's analog emulautions, dynamics, and analog EQ simulation.
Multichannel converter boxes are available from Lavry, Prism, Mytek,
Apogee, and others. Z-Systems has the 6 channel digital EQ and dynamics
units. Much stereo gear can be used if you simply buy three, and some
stereo dynamics units can be slaved to others for multichannel use.
Depending on your application, you may also need hardware or software
surround encoders and decoders. Dolby and DTS make hardware, and Sonic
Solutions, Nuendo, Apple, and Minnetonka have software solutions.

The Harrison and digital SSLs are probably the sexiest ways to get the
job done, but the little Sony was great too, and affordable. The new
Yamahas also seem to have more potential than the old ones, but I've
only used the new O2R96 briefly in stereo mode, so I can't say from
experience. A single Control 24 mix was OK, but a very cool pilot mix I
did was a multi man mix on a good sized TV stage with 4 Control 24s, 5
Pro Tools HD rigs, and an Otari Pic Mix setup for pec/directs and
monitoring. This was a very cool setup. It wasn't a Harrison, but it
sure was a powerful and convenient setup to work on, and more budget
friendly. With a few enhancements I can see how this sort of thing is
going to make it very hard for Harrison, Neve, and SSL to keep selling
expensive consoles. SSL's new C200 is a more affordable step in the
right direction for them I think.

--
Jay Frigoletto
Mastersuite
Los Angeles
promastering.com

[deharmonic]

It is superfluous only if your goal is naturalism.

(ChrisCoaster) wrote in message >...
> (Paul) wrote in message >...
> > Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
> > sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
> > doing so?
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Paul
> > VRSonic
> ________________________________
> To me, surround-sound in a live setting is superfluous. The simple
> reason is that indoor, partially enclosed, and outdoor venues all
> contribute their own brand of ambience. Panning things around and
> behind the audience sounds unnatural in such a setting, and will only
> distract them from what's going on center-stage. (But I'm not one of
> those "Run live PA in mono only" pundits - I do advocate tasteful use
> of stereo or L-C-R panning for realism).
>
> -ChrisCoaster

[Bobby Owsinski]

In article >,
(Paul) wrote:

> Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
> sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
> doing so?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Paul
> VRSonic


We've been doing 99% surround for almost 4 years, mostly for DVD
releases for the major labels and studios, with the occasional
theatrical release here and there. Depending upon the project and the
budget, we either use the traditional studios (9k, System 5, CS3000) 2
of which are built for surround from the ground up, or editing suites
for the smaller jobs. The editing suites all have Nuendo setups, with a
combination of convertors (Mytek and Metric Halo MIO which are very
hot), and either Meitner EMM Labs or Multimax monitor controllers and
M&K and TMH bass managers.

All but 1 of the editing setups are on Macs. Outboard gear centers
around TC6000's and Kurzweil KSP8s. We have lots of different monitor
systems with everything from Tannoy (2 systems), Genelec, Meyer, M&K
(the new Creator series), NHT and a couple more I can't think of at the
moment.

A lot of stuff comes in for review and evaluation. Some of it works well
and some of it doesn't, but, like anything else, you just have to choose
the best that you can afford that will work for your application.

--
Bobby Owsinski
Surround Associates
http://www.surroundassociates.com

[Dave Martin]

"Paul" > wrote in message
om...
> Just curious for all you engineers out there, who's doing surround
> sound for film, tv, etc, and whats your favorite tools, DAW, etc for
> doing so?
>
Not me - I've NEVER had a client ask for it (at least, one who was willing
to pay), and so the only surround thing I've ever recorded was a live demo
of the Soundfield mic that I think ended up on Bobby O's Surround sampler
disk.

--
Dave Martin
Java Jive Studio
Nashville, TN
www.javajivestudio.com