On 12/23/2010 04:32 PM, [email protected] wrote: > Jorn: > > My question about how it SOUNDS wasn't merely rhetorical.
just to make sure we talk about the same thing: stefan was suggesting building upon third-order systems, which is what my comments were about (since i've been working with third order for well over a year now). > Presumably, the 3D/AA has embraced "object-oriented audio" in order to a) > abstract from speaker layouts b) reduce number of audio "channels" to 6 or 8 > (i.e. fit into 5.1/7.1 distribution media like Blu-ray) and c) to make > production more streamlined. object-oriented audio with a limited number of real channels in the traditional sense is an utter non-starter. tell any hollywood foley artist or sound designer to make do with no more than 8 sounds at a time, when film mixes routinely max out 96 channel consoles. object-oriented audio is a very interesting concept, but it's not at all clear how to deliver it to end users. and besides its inability to represent natural recordings properly (except as an extra object that basically has to be ambisonics or a similar format), there is the interesting question of "copy protection": do you think hollywood sound designers would like to deliver to the unwashed masses what is essentially a very good discrete sample library of their very best work, to be ripped off and re-used at the consumer's convenience? the only way i can see OOA catch on is in the form of totally opaque "sound rendering binaries" that run on the consumer's hardware and deliver sounds from a binary blob, packaged like commercial software is today. and once we're there, the concept of a "channel" ceases to exist. > If the playback, distribution and production of audio, which -- for the > first time, as per MAG's wishes -- contains HEIGHT (i.e. is truly > three-dimensional), isn't relatively PAINLESS, then it won't happen. ambisonics has the potential of providing a painless workflow and storage format. auro-3d panning, for a counter-example, is a huge pain. the big advantage of the latter is: you don't do it. you just use those height channels discretely, or form arbitrary stereo pairs. the big advantage is: you don't have to throw out your expensive protools hardware, which for all its sophistication and processing power is (quite stupidly) limited to working with 5.1 busses... so you just commandeer four extra auxes, and there you go. in that sense, the utter lack of a coherent panning concept to include height is a big plus. > But how will it SOUND? > > If the quality of the resulting 3D surround sounds terrible -- yes, QUAD > comes to mind -- then what a waste of time it will have been. third-order ambisonics has the potential to sound very good, and i have delivered a few renderings that i'm quite proud of, with the understanding that i have merely proven the feasibility and potential of third-order ambi, and that better sound engineers in the future will do even nicer things with it. especially once they can draw on thirty years of pushing the limits, which is basically why competing with stereo is so hard - it's not that it's that good as a system, it's just that we have a large group of kick-ass recording and production virtuosos that can do incredible things with it. the big issue is to make HOA foolproof and user-friendly. a major investment, which is forever being prevented by the chicken-and-egg problem of "no native content". so i'm advocating ambisonics as a production format, and exploring toolchains to deliver 5.1 and stero from it, in the hope that in a few years, there will be a small body of ambisonic masters out there that pave the ground for wider adoption. incidentally, i've just tested a large-scale third-order horizontal rig made of eight line arrays and four 4x15" bass stacks yesterday night, with very promising results. the idea is go take a look at ambisonics from yet another angle, namely rock-opera kind of shows or techno events with creative djs who wounld want to explore extra degrees of freedom in their work. a write-up will follow soon. > Is there an Ambisonic and/or Ambi-derived system that sounds really good > that should be considered? plain old third order ambisonics is very nice indeed. usable sweet spot for very good domestic renderings, and enough side-lobe rejection that you can use it in arrays with 20m diameter (possibly more) and have to get closer than 2m to a speaker opposite of the source before the sound field collapses (tested with line arrays with very little level drop over the entire coverage area, the performance with traditional point sources might be slightly worse). i'm aware of at least 3 places in europe which are capable of supporting 3rd-order periphonic post-productions, and i'd venture the guess that within a year, that number will have tripled. -- Jörn Nettingsmeier Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487 Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio), Elektrofachkraft Audio and event engineer - Ambisonic surround recordings http://stackingdwarves.net _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
