Re: realtime stereo to surround

["Stephen Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

From: "Dan" <danielalbertini72@yahoo.com>
> That sounds like an awesome system extraordinaire!!!  My friend and 
> teacher Rick Turner may be
> able to help you with more specific design?  R. Neve and him exchange 
> neural transmissions on a
> regular basis.  Rick had a huge hand in designing and building The 
> Grateful Dead soundsystems and
> instruments he designed and built!!!  I design and build custom guitars 
> that represent countless
> challenging hours of commitment to my field, the art of luthiery.  I sub 
> out electronic work
> utilizing the elite high end pickups Seymour Duncan, Sunrise, EMG, etc.
> --- Qua Veda <qua@oregon.com> wrote:
>
>> I have a RME FF800 that has 8outputs.  I have 5 identical cabinets plus 
>a
>> sub. I use 5 outs to go to FrontL, FrontR, C, RearL, RearR.  My Front 
>L&R
>> have a special crossover for the sub, so they get full range, and the
>> crossover takes care of the split.
>>
>> I was able to get a DVD to play  through the RME.  After some trial and
>> error, I was able to get it to play through the correct speakers. Home 
>> and
>> computer surround processors use a special processor for splitting into 
>> 5.1
>> , but I'm not using that.
>>
>> So now, I am very interested in experimenting with "normal" and 
>> "abnormal"
>> surround and spatial effects.  I look forward to trying some of Per's 
>and
>> Stephen's suggestions.   But it will have to wait for awhile since my 
>> gear
>> is packed away due to remodeling.   But I'm looking forward to some fun 
>> :-)

Well, this has knocked loose some previously-unknown bits from the deep!  
I 
stared sniffing up surround processing and remembered [d-oh!] an 
experiment 
with an old track ("Fever Dream") to remix for surround, using Microsoft's 
WAVAVIMUX tool - it combines the separate channel wav files and an avi 
video 
(optional) into something that can be played through or on a surround 
system 
etc. 
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/creating71audio.aspx

I recall that one of the wonderful things about surround was a bit like 
dolby: if it's already encoded into the audio stream, you don't have to do 
anything special to decode for listening.  (For instance, duplicating a 
dolby-encoded tape: one turns the dolby off for the tape-to-tape and it 
remains encoded appropriately.  How many of us didn't do this in the 
beginning, I wonder?)

So I'm going to mess about with the output from the vsts I posted links to 
earlier, and see if I can exploit the record monitor for "What you hear" 
in 
order to see if a CD-R encoded using this sounds different than a CD-R of 
the same piece (before segregation-encoding) when played on a DVD player 
with surround.  I'm cheap, part-Scottish, and don't ignore these little 
things when they pop up - and can't resist the idea of presenting a method 
for surround recording that doesn't require you to spend a year's salary 
on 
a DolbyTM or THXTM system.

S.