DTS Disc Question - Page 2

dany · 06-25-2006, 08:14 PM

It seems most have problems with the surround which is at the mercey of the sound mixer which can screw it up. As for concerts,well i've been to a few the the sound in a most places is bouncing off the sides and coming all over the place,kinda like surround. Now stop it. Last time i looked,any concert of any type of music is in front of you,some spread out on stage more but nothing on your sides or in back but for an ELP concert i went to that had the same speaker setup on stage as in the back corners of the arena. Fricken loud.

Grant B · 06-25-2006, 08:37 PM

Most Blues based stuff is suited more for stereo or even mono....when it's old scratchie and played out of a tin can it's 'authentic'.
Clapton stuff sounds pretty good on the DTS discs.
But there is a ton of rock /pop that sounds wonderful in surround. I just wish it would actually start coming out. Later Beatles(Revolver & later) would kick start surround big time.

LanceJ · 06-25-2006, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Later Beatles(Revilver & later) would kick start surround big time.

I totally agree with this.

Even if out of pure curiosity, I think many people would buy at least one copy to check it out. So many more people would finally be exposed to surround music, and very possibly try out other, less famous titles.

MarkHastings · 06-25-2006, 09:29 PM

I should state that when I refer to Rock/Pop, I'm not exactly talking Eric Clapton/Eagles type stuff. I can see how their music lends itself to surround.

These rock/pop bands with a whole slew of performers on stage, they must sound really nice with a good surround mix.

I'm talking more of the 4/5 piece bands. The Corrs DVD-A is neat, but the surround just makes me 'dizzy'. It's disorientating to hear rock music surrounding me.

Phil A · 06-26-2006, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grant B

Most Blues based stuff is suited more for stereo or even mono....when it's old scratchie and played out of a tin can it's 'authentic'.
Clapton stuff sounds pretty good on the DTS discs.
But there is a ton of rock /pop that sounds wonderful in surround. I just wish it would actually start coming out. Later Beatles(Revolver & later) would kick start surround big time.

I have the Walter Trout Band on SACD ("Relentless" www.waltertroutband.com - blues/blues/rock). It is a live recording and from memory I did like the multi-channel. Not sure if I preferred it vs. the 2-channel mix but it was good.

I generally dislike seeing concerts in really big venues where the music is blasted and the sound system if one is lucky is mediocre. The places where I saw my last rock concerts held a couple of hundred of people. I'll be going to another this week that perhaps holds a bit less than a 1,000.

I did prefer the Beck hi-rez stuff in stereo but could easily see with the type of music involved (e.g. Sea Change in particular) that the multi-channel had many nice qualities.

To me the art of mixing and mastering a disc is about creating the illusion of the musicians playing in real space in your room not about saying we have multiple channels and we're going to make sure you hear all of them. My girlfriend's son just started school to become an audio engineer. He's already done studio work and sold beats. I could walk into a studio tomorrow and with minimal assistance create a mix that uses all the channels in an aggressive manner (I've heard enough of them - e.g. harmony vocals in the rears, etc.). To create one that is seamless in not knowing multi-channel is being utilized takes much more skill. I don't want to buy music that I find both distracting and that I have the skill to create (and I claim to have virtually none).

I should also note long before 5.1 I had surround music in my systems. Way back in the 1980s (when I was in diapers

), I had devices known as time delays. The most common type had add-on rear channels with delays that could be set in milliseconds. The longer the delay, the bigger the acoustic space (e.g. 15 ms might be a small jazz club, 100ms might be a stadium). So I've played around with a good deal of equipment that produces surround over the years. With the DSPs in receivers and processors these days, if surround is what you want, you can create a much better sounding mix from stereo in my opinion than the vast majority of 5.1 engineered discs out there.

dany · 06-26-2006, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grant B

Most Blues based stuff is suited more for stereo or even mono....when it's old scratchie and played out of a tin can it's 'authentic'.
Clapton stuff sounds pretty good on the DTS discs.
But there is a ton of rock /pop that sounds wonderful in surround. I just wish it would actually start coming out. Later Beatles(Revolver & later) would kick start surround big time.

A good read on the back page of S&V mag about the Beatles and surround.

Phil A · 06-26-2006, 10:19 AM

I should also indicate I loved the way EMI did "Pet Sounds" by the Beach Boys on DVD-A. They included stereo, mono and multi-channel mixes to appeal to fans of both the orig. singles releases and also create something new. I enjoyed all of them. It would be nice if they did the Beatles the same way.

JeremyErwin · 06-26-2006, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dany

A good read on the back page of S&V mag about the Beatles and surround.

That would be this article

I was going to bring up Pink Floyd and the smattering of other bands that released music in "quad" format, but then I remembered that the current "5.1" mix on SACD is different. (Allegedly, there is a bootleg DVD-Audio with the original quad mix).

ChristopherDAC · 06-26-2006, 12:36 PM

Actually, quadraphonic recordings were quite common. I'm sitting here looking at Colors of the Day : The Best of Judy Collins Quadradisc, a CD-4 discrete 4-channel vinyl release [using a subcarrier above the audible range to carry the Lf-Lr and Rf-Rr information]. Unfortunately, I don't have the equipment to play it back as it should be heard, so I'm stuck with stereo [Lf+Lr and Rf+Rr channels play back in the ordinary way], even if the 45-kHz signal isn't all worn off the disc by now.
CD-4 was the only one of the Quad vinyl systems to be discrete, and at that the intermodulation and other problems meant that it wasn't perfect. I would be very glad if somebody would just go back to the master tape and dump it even to a dtsCD, so I could listen to "Both Sides Now" in 4.0. The Compact Disc standard actually provides for a double-data-rate 4-channel playback, but to the best of my knowledge it has never been used.

JeremyErwin · 06-26-2006, 01:49 PM

Alan Parsons. 1975 "Four Sides of the Moon" Studio Sound.

Quote:

Any attempt to duplicate the quad picture from the recorded version would be disastrous. The delay from front to back in a large hall could be as much as half a second, and in tight rhythmic sections this would be very unpleasant to listen to, quite apart from the band finding timekeeping very difficult with their own sound coming back at them from al directions with various erratic degrees of delay.

Thus, the quad system for a live hall has to be used in a rather subtle manner, the aim being in this case to add impact at relevant points in the piece being performed. In the long introduction to Dark Side, the heart beat fades on slowly as the house lights dim and synthesizers and voices swirl around the hall. In one of the Floyd’s old favorites the effect is slightly less subtle: in Careful With That Axe Eugene the quad carries no sound at all until the famous horrific scream at which every amplifier and speaker is driven to its absolute maximum, accompanied by an explosion of flash powder behind the stage.

JeremyErwin · 06-26-2006, 01:53 PM

And in a semi-recent interview

Quote:

Today, Parsons tells me his impression of Guthrie’s six-channel mix. “I’m generally rather disappointed. It’s not very discrete. There is some discrete information in there. But I found myself, about two-thirds of the way through, kind of forgetting that this was surround. James was possibly a little too true to the original mix. He could have taken some risks, as I did on the quad. One of the parameters I always work with when I’m mixing for surround is: Keep the Interest. If there’s nothing going on, then stick something in the back.”

Another Side of the Moon, Sound and Vision Magazine