How to release an octophonic album?

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idmb

Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2013
Messages
21
So I've finished mixing a live album from a house concert of some local independent musicians. There were 6 different acts, none of which are by people who have much of a following as all are relatively new to this. Well one has about 10,000 facebook likes, but it's not likely that any of them would be interested in multi-channel audio.

Since we had 7 mics and three instruments lined directly into the interface, I've decided to attempt an octophonic mix.
There's a variety of music, and none of it is supreme quality, but it's definitely listenable and a lot of fun to be surrounded by. When compared to Zaireeka, it feels like a masterpiece.

We were considering selling a data DVD with the 8 wav files for each song in separate folders, so anyone with an interface and a DAW can just import them. Mailing a DVD in a CD case and providing a public torrent with lower quality files seems like the way to go, to me.


My issue is... What do I do with it? We're not interested in making money, but I want to make it so that anyone who is like I was several months ago and is wanting an easy way to listen to some true octophonic music can do so easily.
Bandcamp? Where to promote and spread the word of it? Is there thread on this site I haven't noticed that is dedicated to octophonic music?

Give me your thoughts, it will probably be available by the end of the summer!
 
I don't have the slightest idea what 'octophonic' is.

But I can tell you that there are 3 formats available to deliver surround sound music to consumers.
FLAC
DVDA
Blu-ray

FLAC is the easiest and most convenient. Use your favorite media player (eg. Songbird) and go.
DVDA is the most accessible disc format since it's been around longer.
Blu-ray supports more bandwidth as well as video in addition to audio.

They all support the standard high res surround formats (4.0, 5.1, etc at 24 bit 96k). FLAC and blu-ray support beyond 5.1.
The disc formats are required for those who bought into the standalone hardware disc players. They can both easily be ripped to wav/flac files as well.
 
I don't have the slightest idea what 'octophonic' is.

But I can tell you that there are 3 formats available to deliver surround sound music to consumers.
FLAC
DVDA
Blu-ray

FLAC is the easiest and most convenient. Use your favorite media player (eg. Songbird) and go.
DVDA is the most accessible disc format since it's been around longer.
Blu-ray supports more bandwidth as well as video in addition to audio.

They all support the standard high res surround formats (4.0, 5.1, etc at 24 bit 96k). FLAC and blu-ray support beyond 5.1.
The disc formats are required for those who bought into the standalone hardware disc players. They can both easily be ripped to wav/flac files as well.

Octophonic studios are rare, but there are quite a few universities that have one.
Concordia has one,
and they mostly look like this: octophonic_studio.jpg



People who play in some form other than just a 5.1/7.2 Blu Ray or DVD or SACD, how do they do it?
I use Reaper and a recording interface that happens to have a ton of outputs.
 
we have a hard enough time getting new 5.1 music out there, let alone anything else!

I was running a 7.1 setup the last few years but a lack of decent material (certainly no music to my tastes and mostly blockbuster movies) meant that I went back to 5.1 and unless something radical happens I don't foresee going back to 8-channel anytime soon.

that photo you supply idmb, shows an almost Quad-like setup but with 8 speakers around you in the listening position.. I don't see that working out for (m)any people at all.. most of us have either classic Quad setups with 4 speakers all the same all equidistant from the listening position, or 5.1 home theater setups with speaker layouts close to the ITU standard (i.e. front left, front right stereo pair, dedicated centre channel in-between them and surround speakers either just behind or to the sides of the listening position.. I doubt anyone here (we're a pretty hardcore surround bunch!) would be running octophonic.. but you never know! Good Luck with it all.! (y)
 
I was running a 7.1 setup the last few years but a lack of decent material (certainly no music to my tastes and mostly blockbuster movies) meant that I went back to 5.1 and unless something radical happens I don't foresee going back to 8-channel anytime soon.

I use a Tate II fed from the surround channels for synthesizing 2 additional rear channels for 7.1 of my favorite music. I like how it fills in the rear in a 5.1 speaker layout.
 
why do you wanna go with 7.1?
that's rather uncommon home audio setup. majority, if utilizes surround setup, uses 5.1 which is quite sufficient for music.
also curious, the recorded performers how many pieces/elements are?
i ask because from recorded material of the modern music most of time there are hardly enough instrumental/vox presentation
to fill up 5 channels, leave alone 7 :)
 
You could always go down the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka route and release four stereo CDs to be played simultaneously on four players.
 
Zaireeka is very ambient, so that it can cope with the CDs skipping etc.
Mine can't get out of sync... :/ Zaireeka is really awesome with my octagon, but it's such low-fi ambient music that is intended to be very sketchy.

9 people on stage for some pieces. Three percussionists, a keyboard player, a guitarist, a bass player, and four vocalists (keyboard player had a mic too).
Even for the solo guitar acts, I:
Had two mics for the vocals, two for the guitar, and two room mics.
Because we had a lot of bleeding (it's a recording of a live show...), even hard panning each mic to a speaker sounds "okay," but with some eqing and panning/changing of effects, it sounds great to mix them around.

It's not 7.1, it's for 8 identical speakers in an octagon like the picture above. No subwoofer.

Does anyone have any idea of someone else who has one on this forum?
 
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