The Cautionary Tale of Cox McQueen: New Surround Music

[skherbeck]

Another great song! I really enjoy your writing style. Comments:

-Great surround placement of the elements in the mix. I like hearing the piano and acoustic guitar in the rears.
-I'm a big fan of back-up vocals placed discretely in the rears... maybe try it and see what you think?
-Maybe slightly raise the drums and bass? There are others here who are better at analyzing fidelity...

I don't know, it sounds great as is, but I guess you could try these things and see if you like it... this is my kind of music
Thanks for sharing.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

T

Thank you for your kind words. Unfortunately, being in one of the sparsest populated areas in the UK I dont know anybody with a surround system that I can audition on. Apart from experiencing the 70's experiments on the BBC in quad using two stereo radio stations and having a rudimentary Soundblaster 5.1 system (which I still have somewhere) about 20 years ago all I have ever heard is at the occasional cinema trip. Ive always thought that music was best from 2 channels as we have two ears. Then, when I set this up yesterday and initially started by upmixing a stereo mix I realized that if you think of surround as a sort of enhanced 3d stereo then it starts to make sense. I don't mind any harsher comments as I want to learn how to do this properly so long as they are constructive but I'm encouraged so far!

Your comment that " music was best from 2 channels because we have only 2 ears "., is unfortunately a common misunderstanding from a lot of people who have never heard a surround sound music presentation.

You've come to the correct site though to find out otherwise , and please don't take offence when I say that's an incorrect observation.
We all hear everything in surround all the time with those 2 ears of ours . Music was meant to be heard in full all around us at the majority of times such as that which is presented originally be it live or in studio.
Hearing music in 2 channels , in front of us , from a group of musicians or artist , denies us some of the reflective array of instrumentaion so we will miss hearing certain sounds from certain instruments that usually only the group on stage or in the studio will get to hear.
Surround Sound does a very good job of restoring this .
You only need to hear in surround some of the amazing surround presentations that you've only heard in 2ch to realize this .

There are some very accomplished works , proggy , prog rock of groups and newly mixed 5.1 or quad albums by some stellar engineers .
There are multiple threads with posts here that you'll find very helpful, so your in good company.

Recommended prog albums , now in surround ,


Genesis - EVERYTHING they have fr studio to live remixed by Nick Davis
Yes -Yes Album, Fragile, Close To The Edge , etc plus solo works mixed by Steven Wilson and Jakko Jakszyk
E.L.P - first 5 albums by Steven Wilson, and Jakko Jakszyk
King Crimson -first 13 albums by Steven Wilson
The Talking Heads- all 8 by Jerry Harrison and E T Thorngren
The Beatles - White Album , Sgt Pepper -by Giles Martin
The Doors all of their first 6 studio by BRUCE BOTNICK

Well geeze I could go on but that's a few noteworthy .
You will find many more searching through qq , and don't be afraid to ask silly questions ....and welcome.........and much success with your prog endeavours.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

D J MANTRA
Just to add to this ......please name 10 or 20 of your favourite Prog Artists Albums and I'll bet at least half are now available or were available in 5.1 or 4ch.

 

[DJMantra]

Yes, I realise we a listening binaurally with sound all around us, I suppose my main worry is the prospect of "diluting" the energy of a track and overly artificially placing instruments in an obvious way. The plain fact is I have never really heard surround music other than in cinemas and generally have found the mixes distracting, although, of course there is also dialogus and sound effects mixed in with film soundtracks. In my three days of having experienced my set up I can now see how I can make it work, at least for me and hopefully for others if, as I said, I think of it as "enhanced, 3d stereo". I do need to listen to a lot of "pro" mixes to help me appreciate it more though. Fortunatel, bein a Prog fan more or less from the age of 8 when I heard Pictures at an Exhibtion when it was released, I can see the benefits of surround sound to this particular genre. My main problem at present is how I get to hear this material. I am perfectly happy to pay for it but I can't work out how to reproduce it. My system is based around computers running Cubase and Soundforge with 6 discrete outputs to speaker via a mixer which is fine for mixing original material and listening to Flac and Wav versions. I have anumber of Blu Ray discs which I cannot listen to because I dont know how to decode the separate channels and get the discrete channels to feed my mixer. I would ideally like to "rip" the content from the discs into the computer for playback but, again, I dont know how. Any help with this would be gtatefully received. I am a massive fan of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, ELP, Yes and other Prog Rock acts. I engineer and perform with a Pink Floyd tribute in surround in Spain which I have set up live surround capability with. Its all quite exciting for me at the moment because I definitely feel that Ive discovered a new dimension to music.

 

[DJMantra]

Is it possible to buy the albums you speak of as download files? If so, where from?

 

[DJMantra]

Another great song! I really enjoy your writing style. Comments:

-Great surround placement of the elements in the mix. I like hearing the piano and acoustic guitar in the rears.
-I'm a big fan of back-up vocals placed discretely in the rears... maybe try it and see what you think?
-Maybe slightly raise the drums and bass? There are others here who are better at analyzing fidelity...

I don't know, it sounds great as is, but I guess you could try these things and see if you like it... this is my kind of music
Thanks for sharing.

I'm really glad you like the track. This one was written by me as opposed to the first which was written by Sharam Gill, I produced, engineered and played most of the instruments on this one. As I said, this is just a demo of the song as I am recording the whole album with various musicians. I shall definitely mix this album in surround as well as stereo. The vocals incidentally, wer placed as follows; vVerse vox front/centre spread, chorus vox mid/centre spread and the Shows that we care rear/centre spread. Did this not come across?

 

[JonUrban]

You can rip your personally purchased DVD-A's and BluRays of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, ELP, Yes and other Prog Rock acts with MakeMKV (which you have to purchase) and then converting that output to .flac or .wav with AudioMuxer (Free).

There are many threads here that detail how to do it. Once you have the 6 channel file you can pop it into Sound Forge or even CuBase and listen to them on your PC

 

[DJMantra]

You can rip your personally purchased DVD-A's and BluRays of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, ELP, Yes and other Prog Rock acts with MakeMKV (which you have to purchase) and then converting that output to .flac or .wav with AudioMuxer (Free).

There are many threads here that detail how to do it. Once you have the 6 channel file you can pop it into Sound Forge or even CuBase and listen to them on your PC

Thank you, that's really helpful info. I will get a Blu Ray drive for my computer ordered today. I have an external drive but unfortunately, it is out in Spain. I'm sure a reasonably priced one should be available at the moment. I've always wondered how this was done. I have had the Beatles Love album and the Endless River for sometime, I bought the rather dissapointing White Album 7 disc set last week. Are there collections of ELP and Yes discs at reasonable prices that you know of? I would very much like these. I was at HRH Prog a week last Friday and there were stalls full of discs, it's a shame I didn't know what I know now as I could have no doubt stocked up. If any of you into Prog doesn't know about the HRH Prog festival you should. It was a lovely event, somewhere I could really feel at home and somewhere where the music feels very much alive, completely divorced from the UK/ US "Pap Charts"! Unfortunately, I had to leave after a few hours as my father was ill but I hope to get on the rosta for an event next year if I can get my album released and put the band together. I saw Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash which I was there as a guest of and also an amazing trio called Gu-Ru, keys, flute and drums. I was really impressed with both. Fantastic venue up in Phwelli, excellent stages and pa and a really friendly 50+ aged, predominantly male audience, although there were some females there. The good thing was there was quite a contingent of younger fans discovering Prog for the first time. Prog will shine through, I can feel it gaining a following all the time. I know that our Floyd tribute shows sell out everytime we play and there is a hunger for new material.

 

[MrSmithers]

Thank you, that's really helpful info. I will get a Blu Ray drive for my computer ordered today. I have an external drive but unfortunately, it is out in Spain. I'm sure a reasonably priced one should be available at the moment. I've always wondered how this was done. I have had the Beatles Love album and the Endless River for sometime, I bought the rather dissapointing White Album 7 disc set last week. Are there collections of ELP and Yes discs at reasonable prices that you know of? I would very much like these. I was at HRH Prog a week last Friday and there were stalls full of discs, it's a shame I didn't know what I know now as I could have no doubt stocked up. If any of you into Prog doesn't know about the HRH Prog festival you should. It was a lovely event, somewhere I could really feel at home and somewhere where the music feels very much alive, completely divorced from the UK/ US "Pap Charts"! Unfortunately, I had to leave after a few hours as my father was ill but I hope to get on the rosta for an event next year if I can get my album released and put the band together. I saw Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash which I was there as a guest of and also an amazing trio called Gu-Ru, keys, flute and drums. I was really impressed with both. Fantastic venue up in Phwelli, excellent stages and pa and a really friendly 50+ aged, predominantly male audience, although there were some females there. The good thing was there was quite a contingent of younger fans discovering Prog for the first time. Prog will shine through, I can feel it gaining a following all the time. I know that our Floyd tribute shows sell out everytime we play and there is a hunger for new material.

Thankfully there are still a few Yes albums available at reasonable prices on Blu Ray, around 16 quid... Yes Album, Fragile, Relayer etc and you should check out Steven Wilson's solo music if you're a prog fan... There is an ELP surround download from the Japan e-onkyo site. It's in Japanese so I can't vouch for it and it's not that cheap but it should be the same album as listed in the polls... I think?!
Glad to hear you're going to do your album in surround! Hope you find a lot of enjoyment from it... It just opens up the sound field so much and is transformative enough to make stereo sound like mono! You're in the right place. There's a lot of knowledgeable peeps on here, so buckle up and enjoy the ride...

PS The White album is brill?! Give it another spin especially the new Giles Martin 5.1 mix...

 

[DJMantra]

You can rip your personally purchased DVD-A's and BluRays of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, ELP, Yes and other Prog Rock acts with MakeMKV (which you have to purchase) and then converting that output to .flac or .wav with AudioMuxer (Free).

There are many threads here that detail how to do it. Once you have the 6 channel file you can pop it into Sound Forge or even CuBase and listen to them on your PC

Whilst looking through the various titles online I noticed the Dark Side of the Moon SACD with the blue cover. I then remembered that I bought this a number of years ago and sure enough, I found it in my collection. I would very much like to hear it. I downloaded MakeMKV and tried to load the disc. It came up with an error "Error 'Scsi error - ILLEGAL REQUEST:ILLEGAL MODE FOR THIS TRACK' occurred while reading 'DVD+R-DL TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224DB SB00' at offset '524288' also 1048576 and 32768.

Do you (or anybody) have any idea what all this means? The standard CD plays fine through Windows media player and I can see the cda files in Windows Explorer. It is an SACD claiming to have a DTS5.1 version of the album on a dual layer. I know I have a dual layer DVD drive as I have used it to write long films onto dual layer blanks that I have made in the past.

Am I just doing the wrong thing? Should I play or rip the disc in another way? Any help would be most appreciated.

 

[skherbeck]

Whilst looking through the various titles online I noticed the Dark Side of the Moon SACD with the blue cover. I then remembered that I bought this a number of years ago and sure enough, I found it in my collection. I would very much like to hear it. I downloaded MakeMKV and tried to load the disc. It came up with an error "Error 'Scsi error - ILLEGAL REQUEST:ILLEGAL MODE FOR THIS TRACK' occurred while reading 'DVD+R-DL TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224DB SB00' at offset '524288' also 1048576 and 32768.

Do you (or anybody) have any idea what all this means? The standard CD plays fine through Windows media player and I can see the cda files in Windows Explorer. It is an SACD claiming to have a DTS5.1 version of the album on a dual layer. I know I have a dual layer DVD drive as I have used it to write long films onto dual layer blanks that I have made in the past.

Am I just doing the wrong thing? Should I play or rip the disc in another way? Any help would be most appreciated.

You need a player specifically labeled as SACD capable to play the multichannel layer of an SACD. SACDs can only be ripped with certain players + software (OPPO103/PS3). The stereo layer of a hybrid SACD can be played on any player that plays CDs.

 

[DJMantra]

You need a player specifically labeled as SACD capable to play the multichannel layer of an SACD. SACDs can only be ripped with certain players + software (OPPO103/PS3). The stereo layer of a hybrid SACD can be played on any player that plays CDs.

Thank you, can you then tell me whether there are SACD enabled DVD/Blu Ray Computer drives that will do the job or do I just have to buy a SACD CD player consumer unit?

 

[skherbeck]

I'm not sure about multi-disc capable computer drives, but OPPO, Sony and others make players that play multiple formats... there's a Sony I've heard others speak of that's out right now and very affordable (maybe someone else can give you the details... I've got OPPOs )

 

[beerking]

Thank you, can you then tell me whether there are SACD enabled DVD/Blu Ray Computer drives that will do the job or do I just have to buy a SACD CD player consumer unit?

Hi DJ

This will suit your needs. Its exactly the same as the one I have and I bought mine off Amazon Warehouse too. Its a standalone player that plays 99% of all known discs!!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B06X92NQYF/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

As far as I'm aware, there is not a SACD drive that can be used in a pc. I looked, when I first got into this type of music, a few years back.

 

[DJMantra]

Thanks again, looks like that avenue is going to be a dead duck. Is there anywhere where I can buy well known surrund mixes in file fomat? Pink Floyd, Yes, ELP etc. I am more than happy to pay but don't want to end up with discs that I just can't rip and reproduce from computer files.

 

[DJMantra]

Hi DJ

This will suit your needs. Its exactly the same as the one I have and I bought mine off Amazon Warehouse too. Its a standalone player that plays 99% of all known discs!!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B06X92NQYF/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

As far as I'm aware, there is not a SACD drive that can be used in a pc. I looked, when I first got into this type of music, a few years back.

I only have one SACD disc so £195 for the pleasure of playing it would be a bit over the top!

 

[beerking]

I only have one SACD disc so £195 for the pleaseure of playing it would be a bit over the top!

Yes but it will play all your other ones you have, like blu rays, CD's etc.

But I get your drift, simpler to play them through a blu ray drive in your PC. except the SACD

I've kept my music system separate from my PC .

Hence I use a separate surround amp.
Like this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-RXV...&sr=8-4&keywords=surround+sound+amplifier+5.1

 

[DJMantra]

Yes but it will play all your other ones you have, like blu rays, CD's etc.

But I get your drift, simpler to play them through a blu ray drive in your PC. except the SACD

I've kept my music system separate from my PC .

Hence I use a separate surround amp.
Like this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-RXV...&sr=8-4&keywords=surround+sound+amplifier+5.1

As I am mixing new surround content from Cubase it is vital that I can reference commercial mixes through the exact same system that I am mixing on. I'm using discrete outputs through a soundcard to a mixer and then onto the speakers. I don't have any sort of decoding equipment for DTS or anything other connected to my system other than the software I'm using (Cubase 10 and Soundforge Pro 12). That is why I can only really listen to ripped files rather than discs.

 

[beerking]

As I am mixing new surround content from Cubase it is vital that I can reference commercial mixes through the exact same system that I am mixing on. I'm using discrete outputs through a soundcard to a mixer and then onto the speakers. I don't have any sort of decoding equipment for DTS or anything other connected to my system other than the software I'm using (Cubase 10 and Soundforge Pro 12). That is why I can only really listen to ripped files rather than discs.

Bit above my pay grade I'm afraid!! But that would make sense. I'm sure folk on this site can suggest suitable, downloadable, digital file outlets to you.

 

[Plan9]

You can listen to Blu-Ray, DVD-A/V, DTS or Dolby Digital encoded surround discs for free on your computer with Foobar or VLC.

It will require a bit of active search for additional plug-ins and components (especially for Blu-Ray) but it's doable.