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6. Re: Surround Sound / Wildlife Recordings

Subject: 6. Re: Surround Sound / Wildlife Recordings
From: "Rob Danielson" danielson_audio
Date: Sat Aug 28, 2010 1:23 pm ((PDT))

At 8:52 PM +0300 8/28/10, Marinos Koutsomichalis wrote:
>On 28 =C9=FC=C9=B3=C9=A1 2010, at 5:21 =C9=A0.=C9=A0., Charles Veasey wrot=
e:
>
>>  Regarding the tightness you describe and feeling compelled to keep you
>>  head still. This is I feel is a major drawback on Ambi reproduction.
>
>that' s really strange.. this is exactly one of
>the problems Ambisonics are supposed to solve...
>
>this is from a paper titled 'the best sounds surround' from ambisonics.net
>
>'Ambisonics provides significant advantages in
>that the effect does not sound significantly
>listener- or speaker-dependent (you can even
>walk outside the speakers and appreciate the
>image).'

Marinos--
I've come across this reasoning as well.  If its
right, it should be an easy effect to produce for
us to hear-- perhaps on a variety of speaker
set-ups.

I think it might be more fruitful for us to study
recordings made under conditions that routinely
challenge us-- very low background sound levels,
in natural settings with landform and vegetation
variations and using high pre gain. I don't have
an Ambisonic array. I'd be happy to record some
comparisons with a loaner though.  Then, maybe we
could make the files available for others to mix
using their preferred methods. Rob D.

>my limited experience with ambisonics is with 2
>or 3dimensional speaker arrays in auditoriums,
>confirms this advantage at least over
>traditional surround systems (I have no
>experience with VBap though..)
>
>What I have to note here is that ambisonics
>decoding is a seriously complex task - not sure
>how the programs you mention do the decoding - I
>use custom software coded in supercollider or
>C++ personally.
>
>This winter I did a live improvised performance
>in a medium-sized auditorium at the 2d
>conference of acoustic ecology in Crete (that is
>an island in south Greece) - I used a
>2dimensional array of 10 genelecs and I decoded
>everything with a more advanced algorithm (one
>that also takes into consideration the angles
>and distances between speakers to slightly delay
>each signal accordingly so one can compensate
>for problems related to these factors)
>
>I didn' t used any surround recordings - I just
>panned stereo/mono recordings - I nevertheless
>experienced a very smooth soundscape throughout
>the space I have a far greater experience
>working with typical 5.1 systems - what I can
>say for sure is that if you walk or move your
>head within a 5.1 system you will hear all sorts
>of artifacts (comb effects, phase modulations
>etc..)
>
>I think ambi reproduction is more forgiving in that respect
>
>in a couple of months I'll have access to a
>decent auditorium equipped with both a 40+
>speakers 3d ambi array and a massive 5.1 genelec
>system - I' d like to do some listening tests
>with the same material reproduced both ways - It
>would also be a great opportunity to listen to
>all these subtleties Rob described ;-) -
>unfortunately up to then I don' t have access to
>any surround array so I can' t listen to
>anything :-(
>
>greetZ
>
>m


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