Re: [Sursound] Somting for the Weekend - Commerisal 3D sound
This seems to me somewhat exaggerated(the remarks about stereo and the center image). Sure, the center phantom image generated as a sum of two identical L/R signals sounds a little different. But little is the operative word. The correction for this fairly small (Meridian used to have it up on their website in Stuart's paper on multichannel for example--how to EQ the center channel to match the perceived sound of the two channel phantom. ) Most people do not notice this at all. I think the speakers are audible in stereo because of the "detent" effect. If you keep the images between the speakers where they belong, most people do not hear the speakers at all. (I say most people because a small number of people hear individual speakers no matter what you do. My late wife was like this. She hated stereo--but she hated surround more. She liked mono with one speaker!) Robert On Sun, 14 Oct 2012, Richard Lee wrote: well, depends. iirc, theile's argument is that a two-speaker phantom source should be a mess in terms of spectrum, but isn't (as two-speaker stereophony demonstrates). so for some reason, the brain is able to sort it out. more than two correlated sources, and things go awry, e.g. L/C/R with too much crosstalk is a pitiful mess. Err.rrh! Actually two speaker stereo IS a mess in terms of spectrum. Just compare a mono signal panned to CF with it panned to hard left or right. It's one of the things which draws attention to the speakers & spoils the illusion. One reason for the seamless performance of 1st order Ambi is that, even with just 4 rather unevenly spaced speakers, it alleviates this effect and helps make the speakers disappear. ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Auro 3D
Jorn is spot on with his analysis. Every live sound show I've worked (8 years+) has had all the amplifiers on maximum. Even those without DSP. You choose what you want the SPL at the desk via the master faders, and balance accordingly to that SPL. Mixing 'backwards' (Jorn's last point) is EXACTLY the way to achieve a dynamic, well balanced and equipment-safe show. Mixing forwards often leads to destroyed speakers, amplifiers and clipped channels. If we're not talking about rock, metal, pop, electronic or dance music - then perhaps maximum isn't the way to go. (*this includes main UK and European festivals as well as touring for 2,000+ cap shows). Andrew J. Horsburgh, Researcher andrew.horsbu...@uws.ac.uk Ambisonic & Spatial Audio Research Group University of the West of Scotland, www.uws.ac.uk From: sursound-boun...@music.vt.edu [sursound-boun...@music.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Jörn Nettingsmeier [netti...@stackingdwarves.net] Sent: 14 October 2012 00:09 To: Surround Sound discussion group Subject: Re: [Sursound] Auro 3D On 10/13/2012 06:43 PM, David Pickett wrote: > At 05:51 13/10/2012, Dave Hunt wrote: > >> I have long been dubious of the common practice of turning all PA >> amplifiers up to full and doing all level adjustments prior to that, >> often at the mixer. This increases the gain of system noise, hums >> etc. It can also mean that the mixer is working at a fairly low >> level, bad enough with analogue mixers but worse with digital ones as >> the final D/A conversion then throws away the highest bits. > > Why would anyone do that? The only sensible thing is to operate the > console at its optimum level and then provide whatever amplification is > necessary to turn that into sound at the desired level. a somewhat convoluted line of reasoning, if i may, rooted deeply in years of sound grunt work experience: 1. p.a. is expensive. 2. very rarely is there more amplification than strictly necessary 3. therefore, you will almost always use the power amps at close to max. 4. rocknroll is _very_ dynamic 5. headroom is actually used. 6. for safety reasons, always mix away from your limbs and torso (aka "the only way is up"). 7. mosh pit crowds are nice to look at, but often not so nice to be in, let alone to wade through in a hurry. 8. depending on the concert, the distance from f.o.h. to the ampracks can easily be 30-100m. 9. you don't necessarily want to be wading through 30-100m of mosh pit in order to bring the amp gains up to be able to deal with the upcoming grand finale of the tune. 10. even if you are, you will very likely be late :) 10. therefore, amp gains are all the way up, right from the start. because they would be anyway, by the end of the concert. -- Jörn Nettingsmeier Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487 Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio) Tonmeister VDT http://stackingdwarves.net ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound Please consider the environment and think before you print *** University of the West of Scotland aims to have a transformational influence on the economic, social and cultural development of the West of Scotland and beyond by providing relevant, high quality, inclusive higher education and innovative and useful research. Visit www.uws.ac.uk for more details University of the West of Scotland is a registered Scottish charity. Charity number SC002520. *** Legal disclaimer -- The information transmitted is the property of the University of the West of Scotland and is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Statements and opinions expressed in this e-mail may not represent those of the company. Any review, retransmission, dissemination and other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender immediately and delete the material from any computer. -- ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Auro 3D
I'm not. But also, this way of working is fine if the system is well designed. With some rental companies, this is not always the case. John On 15 Oct 2012, at 20:16, Andrew Horsburgh wrote: > If we're not talking about rock, metal, pop, electronic or dance music - then > perhaps maximum isn't the way to go. ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Somting for the Weekend - Commerisal 3D sound
On 10/14/2012 09:45 AM, Richard Lee wrote: well, depends. iirc, theile's argument is that a two-speaker phantom source should be a mess in terms of spectrum, but isn't (as two-speaker stereophony demonstrates). so for some reason, the brain is able to sort it out. more than two correlated sources, and things go awry, e.g. L/C/R with too much crosstalk is a pitiful mess. Err.rrh! Actually two speaker stereo IS a mess in terms of spectrum. Just compare a mono signal panned to CF with it panned to hard left or right. It's one of the things which draws attention to the speakers & spoils the illusion. well, some people are more sensitive to this than others. fwiw, the timbral quality of a center phantom source doesn't bother me much. iiuc, günther's main point is that a phantom sourse generally measures much worse than it sounds. in his doctoral thesis, he is suggesting quite an interesting and very simple experiment: see http://www.hauptmikrofon.de/theile/ON_THE_LOCALISATION_english.pdf page 11. even if performed in a non-anechoic environment, the effect is quite striking. here, our binaural hearing apparatus is clearly very beneficial. regardless of whether you consider a two-source phantom spectrum good or bad, i guess we can agree a three-source one is wy worse? this is the problem with ambisonic systems which have too many speakers for their own good - more speakers makes for more crosstalk. if you want to impress your neighbours with eight speakers in a ring, pray impress them with at least third order. even if your ambi-trained brain can sort it out, your neighbour's very likely cannot. -- Jörn Nettingsmeier Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487 Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio) Tonmeister VDT http://stackingdwarves.net ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Somting for the Weekend - Commerisal 3D sound
On 10/12/2012 09:22 AM, Dave Malham wrote: Some other interesting statements, for instance page 7, "Thus, stationary-source elevation cannot practically be accomplished" - it's been a while since i read that paper, but isn't that sentence specifically about auro-3d? the title seems to suggest otherwise, but i think it's not really meant as a general overview at all. Wouldn't that mean that they are actually saying their technique does not work as well as it could? yes. it's not "their technique" anyways. actually, during the initial auro-3d hype and the first marketing onslaught, this paper to me was a very welcome voice of reason that pointed out the limits rather than advertising yet another mind-blowing revolution to end all revolutions... Hmm - a matter or discussion - you can certainly(usually) hear it if you can move around. yes, but try moving around in a field of three or more correlated sources. and even with two-source fields, the degree to which our brain can compensate for the spectral deficiencies in binaural listening is quite amazing when you actually measure the resulting spectrum in one point. Ah well, at least it would get a sufficient number of speakers into people's homes to do Ambisonics with height with a re-jigging of their positions ;-) part of the marketing genius and good sense for practicalities. throw in their clever codecs to shoehorn auro content into 5.1 carriers while remaining downwards compatible, and you have something with potential which we can learn a lot from. if only i had some time on my hands, i'd love to throw an ambisonic deocoder at an auro-3d layout... it's quite sub-optimal for ambi, but there are quite a few of those systems around. Indeed, and as the system is probably as, shall we say, 'forgiving' as 5.1 in terms of speaker positioning, moving the rears in and the fronts out to make something more cubic, it could work quite well for ambisonics, whilst not screwing it up too badly for Auro-3d. actually, most auro-3d proponents i've talked to tend to give up on lateral localisation and move the rears further together for something resembling old-style quad, and they will frequently create stereo fields between Ls/Rs and HLs/HRs, respectively. with the microphone techniques i've seen used for auro, i don't think a cube would hurt at all, at least for non-frontal stuff. but some care should be taken not to mess up the LCR part. -- Jörn Nettingsmeier Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487 Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio) Tonmeister VDT http://stackingdwarves.net ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] E's Sursound Saga, Part I--Why what I do wrong works
Hello Conor, Many thanks for writing. Your email gets at the heart of the second installment of my Sursound Saga (Part II of the diatribe is in work). Yes, I had definitely considered a couple of surround mic options. I am relatively new to Ambisonics and auralization and, not too long ago, I had more than a few naive notions. I had considered the Holophone, spaced miking, the Eigenmic, a Soundfield mic, and even the possibility of affixing a circular array of Pressure Zone Mics (Crown PZM) on a cylindrical support column located inside a nearby open-court restaurant. I did a lot of reading on beamforming--I believe my first source of info on this topic was the Handbook of Signal Processing in Acoustics (Havelock, Kuwano, and Vorlander, Editors; Springer 2008). [Great book, but retails for a lot of $$.]. By the way, you had kindly sent me some product info regarding the RealSpace audio camera. You had sent the pdf brochure to me more than a month ago, and I had meant to contact you. I was quite curious as to the hardware needed (or included) to manage a 64-channel mic array (I'll write to your personal address with more questions). Recordings could certainly be adapted to the existing R-Space, but I am particularly interested in constructing a more 'open' loudspeaker arrangement so that listeners aren't sandwiched between speakers in an already-crowded audiometric test booth. One person on my doc committee is William (Bill) Yost--I'm going to pass your info along to him. His research facility is being renovated. Right now, Bill's awaiting the installation of a rotating chair to be used for balance studies (USAF funded research). The installers will also be adding a semi-hemispherical array of speakers (roughly akin to the setup used at Wright Patterson AFB, but only half a dome will be used). I'm not exactly sure what types of acoustical stimuli will be presented, but the study does involve a surround of sound. For my work, I have explored a plethora of surround IRs needed to generate my own stimuli from dry recordings. My budget (as well as limited brain power) dictates what tools I choose and ultimately use. I'll write more in my upcoming installment about how I've generated a surround of cocktail party (multi-talker) speech for use as background noise. By adding 'natural' reverb (e.g. Waves IRs recorded via a Soundfield mic), I can do a bit better than my original notion of creating reverb via ray tracing techniques in MATLAB.I'm also making live recordings, both for fun and research purposes. My current arsenal of recording gear includes a TetraMic (and matching preamps), a TASCAM D-680 recorder, a Roland R-4 Pro recorder, and a MOTU 896HD audio interface (mostly used for playback). Anyway, I'd certainly like to learn more about your products. Thanks again for the info. Kind regards, Eric From: Conor Mulvey To: Eric Carmichel Sent: Monday, October 15, 2012 8:24 AM Subject: Re: [Sursound] E's Sursound Saga, Part I--Why what I do wrong works Eric, Interesting "diatribe." I am by no means an acoustician but I wondered if you had considered using a spherical microphone array with beamforming to record speech-test background noise for the R-Space system? It could certainly provide you with a quiet coffee house, a noisy airport terminal and other content quickly. In the interest of full disclosure, I do work for VisiSonics and we are proponents of head tracking and HRTFs but we do also have a spherical microphone array that we build, use and sell. Using beamforming, we have recorded environments for speaker arrays. Just a thought, Conor -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20121015/628744d7/attachment.html> ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Somting for the Weekend - Commerisal 3D sound
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:33:09PM +0200, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote: > regardless of whether you consider a two-source phantom spectrum > good or bad, i guess we can agree a three-source one is wy > worse? No. Why should that be ? Theile always repeats that we can handle two correlated sources but not more. But I've never seen any convincing argument for that. And when I asked him he evaded to discuss the matter. > this is the problem with ambisonic systems which have too many > speakers for their own good - more speakers makes for more > crosstalk. There are other reasons for that. They could be expressed in terms of interference patterns if you really want, but that would be sort of missing the point, like trying to understand the beauty of a piece of music by looking at the waveform. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] [ot] new and interesting words
On 2012-10-12, Peter Lennox wrote: as an aside (and without looking it up) ossuary clearly means some official receptacle for bones, I would guess? Uhhuh. It's a sort of a secondary burial site where you either dump, or sometimes also carefully place, people's bones, once they've been cleaned by one mechanism or another. It's the stuff horror movie directors most like to shoot, and which is to be found beneath some of the chapels of Rome, plus certain monesteries. That actually wasn't such a good example of a nasty English word, then. Let's then try my all time favourite: quay. There is absolutely no way to see how that ought to be pronounced, starting from the written form -- something that never happens in Finnish. It doesn't inflect much either. (So obviously it's going onto the page right now. ;) -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - de...@iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front +358-50-5756111, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2 ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] [ot] new and interesting words
On 2012-10-12, Paul Hodges wrote: Melee (no accents in English) This remark surprised me, so I checked. In English foreign spelling and articulation for loans is often retained for a considerable time. That's precisely the mechanism by which it has gathered such a stupendous vocabulary and even phonetic inventory; for some reason English speakers like to keep their words foreign sounding, whereas in comparison Finnish (Japanese evenmore) speakers quickly nativize the spelling and the sound of pretty much any word. Thus, the native version of melee in English really is "melee". It's just that the alternative, original forms still live beside it, after the word has already been domesticated. It's the polar opposite of what has happened e.g. to the word "pizza" in Finnish: everybody pronounced it from the start as "pitsa" but continued to write it as "pizza" (where z is a letter which is not a part of the usual Finnish orthography, but a concession to loan words). Melee in English, is still supposed to be pronounced the way it originally was, even if orthographically simplified. Might I say, that's fucked up, and leads to groups like mine: with English you most certainly never get what you bargained for. Or did any one of you ever know how to properly accentuate something like "accentuation" at first try when you saw it on paper? I think not, and Finnish is a helluva lot easier in that regard. ;) The same goes for melee. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - de...@iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front +358-50-5756111, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2 ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Auro 3D
On 2012-10-13, Dave Hunt wrote: http://www.auro-technologies.com/uploads/Auro3D-Octopus-White-Paper-v2-7-2017.pdf Will read. If ambisonic relevant, will put into Motherlode in time. It concludes that although 24-bit operation is advantageous for audio creation purposes it is inadvisable for playback purposes. This is also true for public address systems [...] On the purely digital front, that's exactly how Audio Renaissance for Acoustics's analysis proceeded, with the likes of Gerzon and Stuart backing it up. So that's just already settled digital knowhow. About the precise, current, frontier in the analog side, I don't know much about. The argument having to do with background noise is clearly sound, but as for everything else, there we could need some hardcore input from the likes of Meridian Engineers. My hunch is that the problems aren't as dire as you paint them to be, but that at the same time it does take a lot of expensive engineering to get them right, so that there will be a serious price/quality tradeoff even at concert hall dimensions. At least that's what the relevant papers said about a decade ago. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - de...@iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front +358-50-5756111, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2 ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
[Sursound] CF spectrum vs L & R in stereo etc
.. was Somting for the Weekend - Commerisal 3D sound > Sure, the center phantom image generated as a sum of two identical L/R > signals sounds a little different. But little is the operative word. ... Most > people do not notice this at all. It's not that we don't notice but that we are so used to it that we think it 'natural'. Most people who hear a Classic Ambi rectangle rig for the first time with the Super Stereo decodes, suddenly become aware of this and it is irritating. That's not to say, Ambi decode is faultless; just significantly better than stereo in this respect. The senior members of BLaH are investigating this. > I say most people because a small number of people hear individual speakers no matter what you do. Michael told me that up to 10% of the population 'suffer' from this. I didn't believe him but looked up his reference which confirmed it. I've forgotten the reference so would appreciate anyone who knows this. >From nearly 2 decades of Blind Listening Tests, I can confirm this is about >right for one small esoteric population ... UK HiFi reviewers. These people are not deaf but in fact, more discriminating than the unwashed masses. They are not easily fooled. > I think the speakers are audible in stereo because of the "detent" effect. If > you keep the images between the speakers where they belong, most people do > not hear the speakers at all. Actually keeping images ONLY between the speakers is what draws attention to them. This is one advantage of Blumlein fig-8s. The soundstage and reverb extends seamlessly beyond the speakers. The most unstable phantom image is CF and sources close to it .. especially with wide speaker spacing. Easy to test all this for yourself if you have a mixer with panpots .. or even a preamp with mono button & balance control. Try it with noise as well as music. ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
