4.1 live matrix creation ... how to?

[elguapo511]

I have two recording from a live arena concert.
One is a soundboard mix by the band with some audience in the mix.
The other is a FOH audience recording with some quality stereo mics.

After listening and reading so much from this board, Im thinking that mixing these two might be worth the time, at least.

SBD in the front
AUD recording in the back
and take the bass from both and make that the 5th cahannel?
Both files are .flac

Is it that easy?

Is there a way to do this?
I have a mac book and am a novice.
it seems simple, or should i leave this to the pros.

thanks

 

[jdmack]

I don't think you should worry about creating the .1 bass channel. Let the bass management take care of that for small speaker users like myself. Just go with 4.0.

As far as software for syncing the audio, all I know is Adobe Audition for the PC, so I can't advise you there.

 

[timbre4]

You do need a program to be the front end of this process, allowing for level adjustments and positioning options. Audition is probably the cheap / free option to go with. The lite version of Sony products I use do not support beyond stereo.

Its hard to imagine a concert without an LFE .1 channel anymore. It's not hard to create one, it does take care in how it is applied.

Such multi source projects can yield interesting results.

 

[sukothai]

I used to think the LFE .1 channel was important for music, but no more. I think it was Kal Rubinson who convinced me the LFE is not necessary for music and in fact can make things worse. If you have a good bass management component in your system and all of the low frequency information is in the main channels, the LFE channel is redundant. If you consider all of the different speaker configurations out there with their varied crossover frequencies; it is easy to see why a bass manager is essential in a good system. If you have a good bass management component steering the lows to your sub-woofer, why would you want some engineer who doesn't understand your room or speakers making the decision of what goes to the sub-woofer?

 

[elguapo511]

4.0 it is.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Listening to stero is a little unnatural sometimes... and with a very well mixed sounbaord, and a somewhat well mixed audience recording, this should sound different.

Any thoughts on how to do this on a mac,
I will have to burn a dvd right

 

[Werno]

I used to think the LFE .1 channel was important for music, but no more. I think it was Kal Rubinson who convinced me the LFE is not necessary for music and in fact can make things worse. If you have a good bass management component in your system and all of the low frequency information is in the main channels, the LFE channel is redundant. If you consider all of the different speaker configurations out there with their varied crossover frequencies; it is easy to see why a bass manager is essential in a good system. If you have a good bass management component steering the lows to your sub-woofer, why would you want some engineer who doesn't understand your room or speakers making the decision of what goes to the sub-woofer?

Just to play devil's advocate, 'some engineers' might have a seismic musical/special fx event that they want to isolate in the sub, either ear candy for the sub-octave enabled or a sonic event that wouldn't necessarily have the desired impact/effect when spread between mains and sub(s) by bass management. For classical and acoustic music in general, I'd agree that 'x.0' would produce superior results, assuming users calibrate their systems/rooms correctly. Who wants to bet big money that most do?

One reason mixing and mastering for both surround and stereo are highly specialized skills is that the great ones somehow make mixes that sound great on a wide range of systems. This isn't easy, I speak from modest experience recording and mixing an album for my band. It's also a major reason 'mastering' exists, because while 'some engineer' is seeking perfection for each individual mix it's hard for them to also maintain a concept of the overall feel/sound of the album, relative levels and dynamic range of songs, and imagine how the whole thing will sound on a variety of systems. Mastering engineers should do as much or as little as is required, but it's one factor behind the way that good albums sound. Sorry, wandered off topic a bit, I just get tired of the reflex 'mastering bad' posts that seem to show up here with amazing regularity.

 

[timbre4]

When you mix there are level, phase and mute switches to compare. I live in a world of low B basses, 8 string basses and Moog Taurus bass pedals and it would be foolhardy to not take advantage of the LFE channel. Depending on how drums are recorded, they generally benefit as well.

We are surrounded by average car stereos overdoing the bass altogether; I term that "overabundance of low frequency" not to confused with a more natural sounding musical extension of the bass register.

Try it, mute it, make up your own mind. There are no rules.

 

[sukothai]

Just to play devil's advocate, 'some engineers' might have a seismic musical/special fx event that they want to isolate in the sub, either ear candy for the sub-octave enabled or a sonic event that wouldn't necessarily have the desired impact/effect when spread between mains and sub(s) by bass management.

Your statement makes sense for movies, maybe, but not music - not any music. Bass is generally not directional -- that's why a subwoofer works! Bass management makes sure the frequencies go to the speaker that can reproduce them and no engineer in the world can predict what kind of speaker setup a person has. I have both a set of full range mains and surrounds all matched in my family room and a set of semi large bookshelf speakers in my office. I have subwoofers in both of these setups, but the crossovers are set completely different. My bass management makes sure all the appropriate frequencies go to the correct speaker - be it sub or main. If your bass manager is doing it's job, the super lows will not be "spread between mains and subs" as you say, but will be only at the sub. I'm in complete control with an x.0 mix where the x.1 mix is totally useless in my book. Believe me, I went through all of your arguments with Kal several years ago and I'm completely converted.

 

[sukothai]

Try it, mute it, make up your own mind. There are no rules.

I certainly don't want to mute the LFE, I just think it is redundant with music. There is nothing special about the LFE channel. All channels can carry the same range of frequencies. It is up to the bass manager in a system to make sure the frequencies are played by the speaker that can reproduce them. If a disc is mixed with an LFE channel, then to get the correct frequencies to your sub, you have to mix the LFE with the low frequencies from your mains to make sure your speakers are reproducing all of the frequencies in the mix. In other words, if you connect only the LFE to your sub, you may be losing some of the low frequencies your mains can't reproduce because they are not being routed to the sub through a bass manager.

Sorry, I just don't see why an LFE is beneficial.

 

[timbre4]

[redacted]

 

[timbre4]

I was directing the mute suggestion to the original poster to TRY the LFE and use the Mute option to simply COMPARE whether he likes it or not and proceed from there based on his own findings. (if that is to be allowed)

 

[sukothai]

I was directing the mute suggestion to the original poster to TRY the LFE and use the Mute option to simply COMPARE whether he likes it or not and proceed from there based on his own findings. (if that is to be allowed)

Certainly it is allowed. I hope you are not modifying your behavior because of anything I have said. I only hope to suggest that the LFE channel is not necessary and give the logic behind my suggestion. If anyone has a theory for why the LFE channel is required, please share it. I really would like to understand why the LFE channel was created in the first place. I guess it kind of makes sense for movies, though a good bass manager could solve the problem there as well. The only reason I can come up with for the purpose of the LFE channel is that it makes it easy to sell a subwoofer.

Back to your suggestion of muting the LFE: I suppose it would only make a difference if there are lower frequencies at the LFE channel than at the mains. The few x.1 music discs I've inspected this is not the case (i.e. the LFE doesn't carry any lower frequencies than can be found at the mains.) Though I didn't confirm if the same low frequencies were in the mains and the LFE, just that they both went to the same level.

 

[timbre4]

Trust me I am not changing anything I am doing. I profess that I do not believe I can offer anything to impact your certainty about this aspect. As the old saying goes, "I heard you twice the first time."

I'm pleased that music is mixed and sold in 5.1 and that I can now apply the same approach to my own music and be thrilled with it.

As for having to prove why I believe what I think about it, you're barking up the wrong tree.

 

[Werno]

Your statement makes sense for movies, maybe, but not music - not any music. Bass is generally not directional -- that's why a subwoofer works! Bass management makes sure the frequencies go to the speaker that can reproduce them and no engineer in the world can predict what kind of speaker setup a person has. I have both a set of full range mains and surrounds all matched in my family room and a set of semi large bookshelf speakers in my office. I have subwoofers in both of these setups, but the crossovers are set completely different. My bass management makes sure all the appropriate frequencies go to the correct speaker - be it sub or main. If your bass manager is doing it's job, the super lows will not be "spread between mains and subs" as you say, but will be only at the sub. I'm in complete control with an x.0 mix where the x.1 mix is totally useless in my book. Believe me, I went through all of your arguments with Kal several years ago and I'm completely converted.

Speaking of making sense- Yes, bass is generally not directional- but what does that have to do with whether there's a derived or purpose-mixed LFE channel? I understand how bass management works when properly set up, but let me take you on a stroll down memory lane to my previous surround setup and to show you how sometimes a dedicated '.1' LFE channel is the only option.

I currently have an Integra 5.1 receiver whose bass management takes care of any sample rate my Oppo 970HD or Sony Blu-ray/SACD player can throw at it via HDMI. When I play a 5.0 Pentatone-label SACD (most of this labels' releases that I've tried show as '5.0' on the receiver's display) whatever needs subwoofer assistance gets it. Ditto any CD, hi-res stereo DVD-audio or SACD tracks, up to and including 192kHz, gets its lowest frequencies sent subward. In this case I don't care whether or not there's a ".1" track.

With my previous, non-HDMI receiver I had one set of six inputs for analog 5.1 connections, and bass management was limited to toslink or coaxial digital audio connections, which topped out at... 96kHz I believe? Anything 5.0 on DVD-audio or SACD that I played via the analog connections would have no subwoofer help at all- whatever channels were present at the analog inputs went directly to the corresponding speaker. Likewise anything stereo (192kHz DVD-audio, stereo SACD or CD) that I played through the analog inputs would not benefit from the presence of a subwoofer, instead going straight to the front L&R speakers- but if I played a CD or DVD via toslink or coax digital, the bass management would kick in. So if nothing else the LFE channel in 5.1 music recording is necessary for some configurations that lack bass management for analog 5.1 inputs. This is probably a shrinking demographic, but it exists.

I'd also suggest that for those of us who aren't komplete Kal konverts, it is possible to imagine an 'artistic' (or engineering) impulse to use the LFE channel for a low bass signal that would not appear at all in the 5 'full-range' speakers- bypassing crossovers, avoiding possible strain to smaller than ideal speakers (because, as you say, the engineer can't know what sort of system his mix will be played on, including whether it has effective and/or properly set up bass management). Likewise an instrument with fundamental tones in the neighborhood of typical subwoofer crossover frequencies whose harmonics extend for octaves above that could be excluded from the subwoofer channel if the mixer thought it sounded better to localize it in the full-range channels- hey, we got to the directionality thing after all. Or maybe he/she just wants to add a subliminal felt-not-heard drone or a solid kick in the fundament to goose an orchestral tutti. If someone tried it direct to the LFE and liked it, or deliberately excluded it from the LFE and preferred it, I think I'd prefer to hear it that way. Kal doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, in which case I want to hear it the way he wants me to too.

It boils down to my thinking your statement's too sweeping in dismissing any possible legit reason for the inclusion of an LFE channel in surround music mixes- maybe add 'on a system with good bass management', and you'd be on safer ground, but you'd still be declaring it impossible that anyone could ever make an appropriate artistic decision to send something directly to the LFE. It's there to be used, or not, in whatever way the artist and mixer feel serves the music. Didn't someone just suggest 'there are no rules'?

 

[sukothai]

Well, somehow I've offended you and I'm truly sorry for that. The great thing is that I can enjoy my 5.0 as much as you can enjoy your 5.1. When I was convinced the LFE was not necessary, it was a real revelation and I guess I get a bit over-bearing about it. Obviously, I don't have the credentials or words to convert anybody else. And that's OK, cuz I don't think the music industry is going to stop making x.1 productions any time soon.

 

[timbre4]

Thanks Werno, you articulated that rather well.

My original intention was to simply suggest the OP experiment with an LFE and see how they like.

 

[sukothai]

Speaking of making sense- Yes, bass is generally not directional- but what does that have to do with whether there's a derived or purpose-mixed LFE channel? I understand how bass management works when properly set up

The non-directional bass is relevant because it means it doesn't matter where you put the low frequencies. Where ever they are, if you have a good bass manager, they will be routed to the subwoofer. This is also why "artistic" impulse doesn't really matter because no matter what the artist does, the lows will go to the subwoofer (if you have a good bass manager.)

With my previous, non-HDMI receiver I had one set of six inputs for analog 5.1 connections, and bass management was limited to toslink or coaxial digital audio connections, which topped out at... 96kHz I believe? Anything 5.0 on DVD-audio or SACD that I played via the analog connections would have no subwoofer help at all- whatever channels were present at the analog inputs went directly to the corresponding speaker. Likewise anything stereo (192kHz DVD-audio, stereo SACD or CD) that I played through the analog inputs would not benefit from the presence of a subwoofer, instead going straight to the front L&R speakers- but if I played a CD or DVD via toslink or coax digital, the bass management would kick in. So if nothing else the LFE channel in 5.1 music recording is necessary for some configurations that lack bass management for analog 5.1 inputs. This is probably a shrinking demographic, but it exists.

Thankfully, the Oppo has a good bass manager built in. My old Denon 5803 (which I still use) has the same problem with the analog inputs, but the Oppo solves the problem for me. Before I got the Oppo, I had an "Outlaw ICBM-1" bass manager that I used with the Denon. So yes; a "good bass manager" is key to all of my reasoning to eliminate the LFE.

Anyway, it is a hard thing to get your head around, because the industry has brainwashed us into thinking the LFE has to be there. But I'm done trying here. Take it or leave it. I've said everything twice or three times as timbre4 pointed out and I'm really starting to make enemies; which I didn't intend to do. I really thought I was being helpful. But I guess I should realize that when I tell people they are brainwashed it isn't going to sit well with them. Maybe I'm the one who's brainwashed. Kal, did you brainwash me?

 

[Werno]

Well, somehow I've offended you and I'm truly sorry for that. The great thing is that I can enjoy my 5.0 as much as you can enjoy your 5.1. When I was convinced the LFE was not necessary, it was a real revelation and I guess I get a bit over-bearing about it. Obviously, I don't have the credentials or words to convert anybody else. And that's OK, cuz I don't think the music industry is going to stop making x.1 productions any time soon.

And so peace returned to the land of Quadonia. For future guidance, references to the previous poster's assertions as (paraphrasing slightly) 'making no sense for any music' and having been the result of 'brainwashing' are a little loaded emotionally and tend to elicit cranky responses. Timbre4's terseness was providing a good example, sorry I took so much bandwith going down this semi-relevant rabbit hole. I'll try to address the OP's question a little as penance. At least it's a different rabbit hole.

I'm a mac user who has done some of what you're debating doing, elguapo511- in my case I was mixing multiple-sourced recordings of a live performance down to stereo, but the principle's the same. You need a multi-track DAW (Digital Performer in my case, bought someone's old version on Ebay) to line up your various tracks even if you're mixing to stereo; to get a playable surround mix you have to be able to line them up and then output them into audio files representing the final channel assignments. In my first case I had a stereo camcorder next to me onstage that I mixed with a mono camcorder soundtrack from out front that had the FOH mix but was compressed by the camcorder's crappy auto level control. In the spirit of 'try anything, there are no rules' I ended up panning the mono signal left and put the stereo channels center and right- when I tried putting the mono in the middle, there were phase issues that no amount of nudging earlier or later could resolve, so I went with treating it as a spatial effect between left and right (just don't listen to it in mono).

For a gig at a bigger venue (House of Blues in AC, NJ, to be specific) I had a Zoom H2 recorder on the mixing desk recording 4-channel WAV surround, plus 10 channels from the mixing desk going to separate tracks on Digital Performer. This is kind of your situation, having the audience perspective recording to mix with the direct mixing board tracks. You don't mention what medium your source track are recorded on, but for this to work they better be digital or you'll have a hard time keeping two imported separate sources synced in your DAW for the length of a single song, much less the whole concert. With a total of four tracks of audio, your big challenge will be getting them lined up to avoid bass-and-clarity killing phasing issues; all DAW's I'm aware of let you nudge tracks at single-sample level if necessary, but check with good headphones to really hear when things lock in. It's less critical if you're mixing 4.whatever, but if you wanted to have a stereo version getting this right will make a big difference. Then you can proceed to tart it up with whatever EQ and FX you fancy and mix down to 4 or 5 clearly named audio files to use in the next phase.


So what can your burn this mix on to actually play it? For the 'consumer level' options I'm aware of you need either:
1. a DTS encoder to turn the resulting mix into a DTS CD or DVD OR
2. a Dolby 5.1 encoders to burn a DVD OR
3. an app capable of burning your 4.whatever WAV tracks onto a DVD-audio disc.
4. a multichannel mac audio interface that can output 4 (or more) via analog that you can plug into the 5.1 inputs on a surround amp or receiver.

There's a whole area of this forum devoted to authoring surround formats, but for a quick-and-dirty option (that I haven't actually tried myself, but I will soon....) the one to beat AFAIK is a free Mac program called Burn, which lists four categories of discs it'll burn including DVD-audio. I can't take you step by step, but your WAV files would basically get dragged into the window and get processed into a burnable DVD-audio. Since MLP lossless compression isn't available to mere mortals, there'd be a limit to how high a resolution could be supported on your disc, but the germane factor is that it could be a 4.0, 4.1, or 5.1 disc that would play on a DVD-audio player. If you find out anything specific about how well Burn does this I'd be interested; it might be a topic of discussion in the surround authoring forums here, but I haven't looked.

Good luck.

 

[sukothai]

And just in case anybody wants to punish themselves with even more discussion on how and whether to create an LFE channel, here are the threads to do it:

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...-get-bass-when-you-don-t-have-bass-management

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...LFE-On-ProTools-M-Powered-with-Mix-51-Plug-In

 

[quadtrade]

This tussle is not a good idea to perpetuate, no one will win, everyone loses, cause someone did not get convinced or someone says something silly. I have been recording a lot of the Telarc SACDs of late, and almost all of them have skipped the lfe channel. Bishop and Jung did most of these I believe, Both of those guys get it. Even the center seems to have little input. 4 full range speakers are all you need to do a soundfield with cohesion. The toys are there for 5.1 because of the idiots like Tom Holman. Does not mean they are needed or work like they should in a real bubble soundfield, they usually disrupt the whole damn thing. Especially that insane center channel, does nothing but disrupt everything!!! That assumes you have people who understand the idea of a bubble, the idea of a soundfield. Many of these guys mixing are doing it just like the old quad days and poking crap in that center channel which is just unneeded. You can get a voice from the center if that is what you want, and that speaker is not needed for that idea. This fight has been going on since the movie industry decided it was needed for their needs, Brad and I fought this idea from 1995 through 1999 at CES with everyone. It was an unwinnable war and even Brad had to give in and allow for the 2 extra channels, even if we made them so they were just superfluous and could turn them off. If you want 5.1, mix to the soundfield and you will make it work for all systems. It means you mix for the bubble and just scum off the bottom end for the guys who need that sub slamming their head. Then suck a bit of each channel, mix it a bit lower in volume, and give them that idiot center channel. Then put in the medium(dvd-cd-download), turn off the center and sub for a true soundfield. The soundfield is what you want to achieve and a sub and center disrupts that field. An age old fight by this time, going on 20 years now.