Re:Re: surround looping

[a k butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

jeff says;-

>  But to my knowledge, everyone uses brother
>sync for stereo looping, I'm guessing for this reason.

That's right, MIDI sync in Loop4 is pretty good though.
Not sample accurate like brother-sync, but phase accurate most of the time.

My take on 5.1 surround.

1) not saying it doesn't "sound good"
2) a stereo image works best with the speakers at 60 degrees apart, or 
less,
    which is why serious surround sound systems have 8 speakers (6 at 
absolute min).
    5.1 is not enough speakers to do "surround stereo"
3) a stereo system of the same cost will sound better than 5.1
4) the term "sub woofer" has changed it's meaning in recent years, the 
term 
originally
   referred to a speaker to handle just the very low frequencies that a 
regular speaker
    wouldn't produce, hence the perception that it just added a bit of 
depth, and that
    it didn't matter where the sub was placed. The 0.1 in 5.1 is for one 
tenth of the
    frequency range ....20,000/10 = 2000Hz , which makes it a regular 
"woofer".
6) in a gig situation there's no way to get the whole of an audience into 
the sweet spot,
    and many audience members will be close to just one speaker.
     So when mixing a band on a stereo pa I put them in mono anyway :-(
7) stereo FX (like polyechoes) can sound pretty good, so more speakers 
could really
    add something.
8) 5.1 is designed for "making the explosions behind you", while keeping 
the main attention
    on the screen. It's not designed for spatial music.

When Pink Floyd were using quadrophonics (1967), they had 2 sets of pa 
speakers,
a main pa, which was stereo(maybe mono, I don't know) and a second 
quadrophonic
pa (of smaller wattage) for effects. Mostly the sound came from the main 
pa, but the quad was used just to highlight certain instruments at various 
times.

I'm all in favour of multi-channel sound, but I don't think there's 
anything special in the 5.1 format.

  andy butler