weazel91 Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 Hey, first post here! Blue-room has always helped me out in the past with the topics that you've had however one thing I cant find and need help with is this. I'm looking to play out a 5.1 surround sound video of a tornado through my laptop. What do I need hardware wise? a USB 5.1 Sound card? Does this output "True 5.1 Surround sound"? What would I do then? Take the front outputs from the sound card into the desk pan right and left and the surround outputs from the sound card to the desk and aux send them to rear speakers. Would this work? ANY help would be appreciated. Just to let you all know I ain't a sound guy, I'm a lighting guy haha so plain English is preferable :D Thanks!! Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boswell Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 In plain English, 'Yes' but you do need 6 channels not 4 for 5.1We did exactly that for our WoZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pisquee Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 To expand on Boswell's post... The four channels that you mention will give you quadrophonic surround, and not 5.1. The fifth channel and speaker set you need is Front Centre, you could just pan this as centre of the front left and right speaker set, but it won't be as good. The sixth channel is sub, and needs to be sent to your subs, so running them from an aux instead of just off your left/right outputs and a crossover. Again you could just send it down the Left/Right outputs as well, but each compromise you make gets you further away from being a 5.1 mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 I designed a show with a similar effect once but, in my case, made my own effects with 4 discrete tracks rather than 5.1 audio. How worthwhile it will be to go the full 5.1 route will depend on the size, shape and acoustics of your auditorium--the surround effect in your living room has a relatively small "sweet spot" that probably won't duplicate properly in a space as big as most theatres. Depending on your resources, it may not be worth the effort of trying to work in the centre front speaker--as somebody already noted, having front left, front right plus the two rear corners may be all you need. However, I would go for the sub(s) since some really deep LF rumble will add greatly to the effect. As for how to do it, your instincts are good. Bring all the channels into your mixer, send the front left and right to the regular FOH then route the others separately. Depending on your mixer, post fade auxes would be fine but, if you have the option, I might use groups instead. However, either will work. Just as an aside, for a bit of fun I once brought in the requisite number of discrete channels to a DM1000 and used the surround sound joystick to "swirl" things live--muchos fun from the sound op point of view (but your idea sounds safer and more repeatable!). Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanr2109 Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 how I have done this, (if you are only mixing sound effects in 4 channels, not the entire show) was using a second powered sound desk (so as not to need separate amps for rear speakers) and left it live at all times, sent the rear 2 channels into that and panned them left and right. this means you don't need to waist aux sends and desk channels if you are short, and you only need the front sound and probably the sub channel (because the 5.1 will have a crossover applied) in the main FOH mixer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth Owen Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 Hey Bobbsy - don't forget you can automate the surround panning on a DM1000 even though the joystick won't move. Repeatable but no where near as much fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 Just to add; 5.1 is an encoded format, and such is really handy when the consumer elctronics industry is trying to foist some new audio fad onto consumers without them all having to buy shiny new incompatible stuff. I pro audio, one generally uses discrete channels, because its altogether less faffing around and is compatible with the sorts of kit that we already have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted October 24, 2010 Share Posted October 24, 2010 Hey Bobbsy - don't forget you can automate the surround panning on a DM1000 even though the joystick won't move. Repeatable but no where near as much fun! OT, but I've done exactly that on a number of shows and it works well. However, playing with the joystick is a great way to impress a non-technical director and make him/her think you're really clever! Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weazel91 Posted November 8, 2010 Author Share Posted November 8, 2010 Cheers guys, alot of helpful information! I'm now looking for a reliable 5.1 sound card for my laptop. I've had a look at the "creative sound blaster x-fi 5.1 pro" Any good ones out there? C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_P Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Hi, I am hijacking an old thread, as it is the closest to my problem that the search function reveals. Hope that this is OK. I have an upcoming show where the director wants sounds (pre-recorded voices etc) "swirling around the audience". I have achieved this effect (albeit for slow sounds such as a horse race circulating) in the past with individual audio feeds to speakers in each corner of the auditorium, with levels manually adjusted using the envelope tool in Audacity, and played back as two linked stereo tracks (one front, one rear) using Multiplay or SCS. This will be performed in an approx 180 seat theatre with no circle, and equiped with an analogue desk. Whilst this approached worked, it was fairly time consuming, and lacked both flexibility and finesse, so I am keen to find a better way of achieving the same thing. I have found a number of VST plugins that claim to emulate this effect using a pair of speakers, but I am in the fortunate position of being able to use four (or more) speakers. I assume too that the ideal system would need to process phase and signal delay as well as channel volume, and potentially even model doppler shift for fast moving things! I have considered the use of a large number of panning cues in SCS, or some sort of automation approach, but these seem to be far from ideal. Is anyone able to recommend a better approach to producing this effect? A great deal of googling on my part hasn't revealed an answer, but I may be searching for the wrong thing! Any suggestions very much appreciated. Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 As a basic principle, I'd produce the effect in a software editor that can natively handle 4 channel surround sound and play it as a single effect through a multichannel sound card, not trying to add the "movement" as live cues. Personally I use Adobe Audition to prepare my effects and it has a built in ability to do multichannel panning. They have a 28 day full feature trial so it might be worth downloading that and seeing how you get on. For the playback, if the rest of the show is simple I might just do it in Audition but my preference would be to use the paid for version of SCS which can feed multi channel effects easily. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_P Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Thanks for the quick reply. I will have a look at Audition, and maybe some of the similar packages. I am using SCS Pro at the moment, so will play with the multi-channel playback elements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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