[SOLVED] Good and cheap virtualization plugin to place things in the rear channels

[Lynx_TWO]

Anyone know of a good and cheap plugin that allows me to place certain tracks in the rear surround channels on a stereo mix? I know you can do it with phasing but looking for an easier solution that won’t break the bank…

The ability to pan from front to rear and back would also be nice but not absolutely necessary.

Thanks in advance!

[DVDdoug]

There are real advantages to actual discrete surround sound (5.1 Dolby Digital, etc.). The disadvantage is that the only "standard" formats that everybody can play are DVDs & Blu-Rays.

I know you can do it with phasing

If the left & right are identical and 180 degrees out of phase (one side inverted) a Pro Logic decoder will steer the sound to the rear.

It's easy to invert one channel but then it has to be decoded.

But "steering" doesn't usually sound right with music.

The "matrix decoder" mode MIGHT send the difference signal to the rear without steering so your stereo music isn't messed-up. (so the out-of-phase sounds and "regular sounds" still exist in left & right).

When done "properly" one side is phase-shifted -90 degrees and the other +90 degrees. (Hilbert Transform) But I don't remember which left or right.

The ability to pan from front to rear and back would also be nice but not absolutely necessary.

From what I remember you can't keep it centered as you pan... It will pan toward the front-left or front-right before it can be panned to front-center.

[serr]

Originally Posted by Lynx_TWO

Anyone know of a good and cheap plugin that allows me to place certain tracks in the rear surround channels on a stereo mix? I know you can do it with phasing but looking for an easier solution that won’t break the bank…

The ability to pan from front to rear and back would also be nice but not absolutely necessary.

Thanks in advance!

Search for "upmixing" plugins. They're out there. Penteo is a name I've heard of. The response from surround sound listeners from hearing an upmix or other faux surround mixes is usually not positive, just FYI. (It sucks to buy an album and find the "surround" mix is upmixed stereo or stereo in front with awkward reverb that doesn't sound right in back.)

It sucks when the multitracks are no longer available when you want to do a surround mix later on! Or get destroyed in a studio fire...
Got to get the surround mixes out with the stereo right up front or things can slip away.

Having said that, I have heard a few upmixes where someone first did no damage and then actually worked some things intentionally and got good results.

[Lynx_TWO]

Originally Posted by serr

Search for "upmixing" plugins. They're out there. Penteo is a name I've heard of. The response from surround sound listeners from hearing an upmix or other faux surround mixes is usually not positive, just FYI. (It sucks to buy an album and find the "surround" mix is upmixed stereo or stereo in front with awkward reverb that doesn't sound right in back.)

It sucks when the multitracks are no longer available when you want to do a surround mix later on! Or get destroyed in a studio fire...
Got to get the surround mixes out with the stereo right up front or things can slip away.

Having said that, I have heard a few upmixes where someone first did no damage and then actually worked some things intentionally and got good results.

I actually own Penteo Pro 16, (it was darn expensive though) I guess I just never considered using it for downmixing. For upmixing it does do a decent job but it's not really discrete like DTS or Dolby Pro Logic II. For example, the vocals will often be included in the rear channels. It IS fully lossless to a stereo-to-surround-to-stereo though... I wonder though if I upmix the stereo track without rear channels, add what I want into the rear channels, then downmix it to stereo if it will be a matrix-encoded signal. I'll have to do some tests.

And yea, Nightwish's DVD-Audio disc is stereo with added reverb in the back. It's super annoying for sure.

[McSound]

Melda Production MChannelMatrix - free plugin. Hope it helps.

[Lynx_TWO]

Originally Posted by McSound

Melda Production MChannelMatrix - free plugin. Hope it helps.

Outstanding thanks! I will check that one too and report back. Gonna experiment tomorrow since I have a specific track in mind

[Lynx_TWO]

Just tried with Penteo Pro - does NOT result in a discrete 5.1 to Stereo mix that is decoded to surround, unfortunately. Sounds the same as without Penteo Pro, sounds still get decoded as normal and not discretely into the rear channels even though I can confirm I routed the rear channels to 4/5 and had Penteo fold it back down into a Stereo Mix.

[serr]

Hold on... You're trying to go the other direction!? It sounds like you wish to create a single inventory style release that compresses to stereo but expands back to discrete surround? Like what the encoded formats back in the '70s failed so miserably at?

Your OS audio engine will speaker manage for you better than any encode/decode. You could release as a single 5.1 flac if you wanted single inventory and stereo listeners would hear it folded down to stereo just fine. There are media players that would let them play with some of the controls too. Some people mess with a binaural approach to try listening to surround content in stereo. Hardware AV receivers have speaker management features as well and can fold surround down to stereo.

If you're stuck with stereo monitoring, you already can't really hear any surround. Any fold down is going to be close enough to a stereo mix to be close enough for rock n' roll. I don't mean to dismiss that a dedicated stereo mix for stereo monitoring would be better! Just that the other direction - a lossy decode of some encoded format for stereo containers - usually results in a significantly mutilated surround mix. Noticeably altered at the very least. The choice becomes between maybe a little alteration in stereo vs mutilated surround. The surround listeners typically care quite a bit more! If you're making single inventory, make a 5.1 flac. And... that's a file 3x the size now! So we're kind of back to dual inventory.

If the choice is between maybe skewing a stereo version slightly vs really stepping on the surround, the surround audience will be pissed! The stereo listeners would be none the wiser. That's how that decision would play out for me.

[Lynx_TWO]

I have a full 7.2 monitor setup but yea, there were a ton of Telarc CDs back in the day that are compatible with surround sound, so yea I’m trying to fold a discrete 5.1 mix down to Stereo and have it still be relatively discrete when the user uses DTS, Pro Logic II, or similar to decode. Apparently Penteo Pro fails miserably at doing this.

Oh well. I suspect you are right, either do two separate mixes or just stick to stereo since we don’t have a good way of encoding surround to matrixed stereo apparently

[serr]

I think it's just that the target of hitting a proper stereo mix and then have that mix be able to expand to discrete surround with some trick in the analog audio signal that doesn't leave artifacts is so over the top ambitious it isn't reasonable to expect. Some of the older encode/decode formats aimed at that did have their moments of limited success. Stay within the lines as it were with your source and there are some examples that shined. When these degraded just a little it was pretty altering though!

The desperation was because there were only two channel consumer formats available. We can deliver with a multichannel flac file now. The stock speaker management to fold down to stereo when starting from a discrete 5.1 mix is a no-brainer compared to the heavy lifting the encode/decode systems needed to pull off. (If you wanted to do a single inventory 5.1 flac file.) The problem we were desperately working around just isn't there anymore.

[Lynx_TWO]

The more I mess around with this the more I agree with you. I was able to get the DTS Neural plugin from waves today along with a coupon code for $224 ($499 regular price; I use 'Coupert' and 'InvisibleHand' extensions on Google Chrome - I highly recommend both) so I pulled the trigger as I had tried it out before. Decoding the stereo mix to the desired 5.1 and re-encoding to a 5.1 stereo mix with that plugin does work and changes the surround configuration when then decoding through an AVR with DTS Neo or DPLIIx.

I have shared three files as a demo:

Original Stereo mix and master I did of a multi-track from the Cambridge website:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Iy1...ew?usp=sharing

5.1 decoded mix using DTS Neural:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NOP...ew?usp=sharing

Stereo 5.1 encoded version using DTS Neural Downmixer:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AFI...ew?usp=sharing

All files 24-bit FLAC at 48kHz. I'd be interested in your impressions of the original Stereo vs the 5.1-to-Stereo result.