Listening to this surround UPMIX

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It's my hobby to collect movie soundtrack music, only the interesting parts, usually just one song. If the music allows it, I upmix it from stereo to 5.0 channels. I recently did that for Biutiful. I was amazed how well that worked out.
 
Both Cat Stevens' albums, Tea for the Tillerman(1970) and Teaser and the Firecat (1971) sound excellent upmixed with SpecWeb 2.2 defaults.
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My Process: CD > MusicBee (FLAC) > SpecWeb (defaults) > Mch (FLAC)
My Setup: (FLAC) NAS > Oppo BDP-103D > Denon AVR-X7200WA [Multi-In + DTS Neural:X] > 7.2.4
 
More albums that sound great upmixed with SpecWeb 2.2 dfaults:
The Heads, No Talking Just Head (1996), and Tom Tom Club; Tom Tom Club (1981), Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (1988) and Dark Sneak Love Action (1992).
I dare say, all are as good as the Talking Heads DualDisc 5.1 box set (2005).
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My Process: CD > MusicBee (FLAC) > SpecWeb (defaults) > Mch (FLAC)
My Setup: (FLAC) NAS > Oppo BDP-103D > Denon AVR-X7200WA [Multi-In + DTS Neural:X] > 7.2.4
 
I don't mean to be a fly in the ointment here but almost every upmix i have heard (and I have tried A LOT) has the same.problem as the script decodes of SQ and QS and that is artifacts and softening of percussives and vocals. That whole stem thing would be awesome if you could get rid of all the artifacts that go with it. I just can't listen. But then I had the same problem with a lot of the early decodes. And even ones I did. I much prefer the surround Master decodes to a script any day.
 
I don't mean to be a fly in the ointment here but almost every upmix i have heard (and I have tried A LOT) has the same.problem as the script decodes of SQ and QS and that is artifacts and softening of percussives and vocals. That whole stem thing would be awesome if you could get rid of all the artifacts that go with it. I just can't listen. But then I had the same problem with a lot of the early decodes. And even ones I did. I much prefer the surround Master decodes to a script any day.

I‘m discovering that I also prefer the Surround Master upmixes in most cases. My complaint is not only impact loss but a also a loss of ambience...call it suppression...with the scripts. The SMv2 does not suffer from this issue. However, there is the occasional Penteo/etc. upmix that sounds really spectacular.
 
I usually end up deleting 90-95% of the upmixes I make with SpecWeb but the ones I do end up keeping sound amazing.
 
I don't mean to be a fly in the ointment here but almost every upmix i have heard (and I have tried A LOT) has the same.problem as the script decodes of SQ and QS and that is artifacts and softening of percussives and vocals. That whole stem thing would be awesome if you could get rid of all the artifacts that go with it. I just can't listen. But then I had the same problem with a lot of the early decodes. And even ones I did. I much prefer the surround Master decodes to a script any day.
No flies, no problems. Your ears, equipment and tastes are different than mine. I've had my setup for years and enjoy it. SpecWeb cost me nothing, except for the donations I make. I have found some material that didn't work well with the default settings, and I find there are plenty of parameters to noodle with, if I decide to, to make those tracks sound better. And I enjoy it enough, that I can find the time to noodle. Working on a few Queen albums, with a few artifacts, right now.
 
Artifacts are a bummer. Going a little deeper into the Plogue version of SPEC gives some more control, but I almost always went for the max separation vs artifacts I could stand. Sometimes there is almost nothing you can do, but when you get something you can be truly happy with, it's a joy.
Try some 60's recordings that were panned all over the place and you'll be surprised at the separation. Spirit's Twelve Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus is one of my favorites in this regard.
 
I don't mean to be a fly in the ointment here but almost every upmix i have heard (and I have tried A LOT) has the same.problem as the script decodes of SQ and QS and that is artifacts and softening of percussives and vocals. That whole stem thing would be awesome if you could get rid of all the artifacts that go with it. I just can't listen. But then I had the same problem with a lot of the early decodes. And even ones I did. I much prefer the surround Master decodes to a script any day.
I use Audition and it is my experience that artifacts are least audible when the sum of all channels draws near to the mono signal. Which of course isn't quite possible because the monosignal does by definition not contain the center back. But all in all, if I listen to one channel of the 5.1 set I hear artifacts, if I listen to all of them I don't hear them. If you still hear artifacts, the volume of the seperate channels is not in balance. One or two of your channels is probably to loud, and make the artifacts audible.
 
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