Steven Wilson Steven Wilson's New Studio

[Stupy]

Errr. I know I'm taking this somewhat off topic, but consider for a moment that brand new Porcupine Tree track, Harridan. It is blistering in quality and impact. I cannot see Steven Wilson being involved with crap even in this headphone era. If headphones is what it takes for us to get more quality material in surround, then I'll take it. Without the headphones, of course! I am more frustrated with the personal shopper boxset matter.

 

[THX1136]

I can't picture him going from listening to his studio setup, to putting on the ear buds that are popular and tweaking the mix based on them.

What I have been admonished to do when mixing, regardless of format, is to always at least check the mix on as many different playback systems as possible which would include home, car, and headphones/earbuds along with whatever is in the studio. I would guess Wilson doesn't necessarily tweak the mix expressly for headphone listening, but rather he most likely checks to make sure his vision of the mix is not 'damaged' when listening via 'phones. I am also guessing you knew that, but others may have not considered this approach.

 

[kap'n krunch]

Mr. Wilson;
1-What headphones do you use to monitor these "almost binaural" mixes?
2-Where could I find the beautiful and certainly comfy red chair in your studio? I'd prefer mine in blue, though....
Cheers!

 

[himey]

What I have been admonished to do when mixing, regardless of format, is to always at least check the mix on as many different playback systems as possible which would include home, car, and headphones/earbuds along with whatever is in the studio. I would guess Wilson doesn't necessarily tweak the mix expressly for headphone listening, but rather he most likely checks to make sure his vision of the mix is not 'damaged' when listening via 'phones. I am also guessing you knew that, but others may have not considered this approach.

According to him he has never heard a quadraphonic mix. I have doubts he spends any significant time using headphones to evaluate any mix and much less, tweaking it afterwards.

 

[kap'n krunch]

According to him he has never heard a quadraphonic mix. I have doubts he spends any significant time using headphones to evaluate any mix and much less, tweaking it afterwards.

It never hurts to ask!!!
Whenever I meet any of my "heroes/heroines" I try to ask them INTERESTING questions... I remember meeting Tony Levin for the 3rd time in a rehearsal and asking him if he and BBruford used to keep counting during the wild section/solos on "Industry" and he didn't remember at that moment...that same day he came over to me to tell me that he remembered and YES, they used to keep counting ..dumdumdum(one, two) dumdumdumdumdum(one, two)...
THAT was a lot of fun!
the guys in KC are all awesome..although Jakko did not have a sense of humor (and I try to make my jokes VERY safe!)... oh well...

 

[MidiMagic]

I would wager full-range 4.0.1 would actually be sufficient to enjoy two-plane surround with some level of success. I don't think that's a supported configuration, though.

It was in the 1970s briefly. A few movies were made in a version of Dolby Stereo with height speakers.

 

[MidiMagic]

I can't picture him going from listening to his studio setup, to putting on the ear buds that are popular and tweaking the mix based on them.

If they encoded it so that headphone users can hear a full surround effect, then is this a matrix system that can be decoded?

 

[himey]

If they encoded it so that headphone users can hear a full surround effect, then is this a matrix system that can be decoded?

The discussion was about Atmos for headphones. Sorry but I don't know too much about it.

 

[JediJoker]

If they encoded it so that headphone users can hear a full surround effect, then is this a matrix system that can be decoded?

No. It's an object-based system that is decoded to the number of channels available.

 

[MidiMagic]

No. It's an object-based system that is decoded to the number of channels available.

I mean the signals sent to the headphones.

 

[furui_suterioo]

I mean the signals sent to the headphones.

It would be interesting to see what happens with QS or Sansui Synth mode if one could find headphone-encoded test tones.

 

[JediJoker]

I mean the signals sent to the headphones.

Why would they be? They only have to work on headphones. They'll be binaural extractions from the spatial metadata.

 

[MidiMagic]

It would be interesting to see what happens with QS or Sansui Synth mode if one could find headphone-encoded test tones.

I already did it years ago. But I used my mixer-encoder to produce the test signals.

Benjamin Bauer did the SQ version of the tests. I did the QS version.

And Bauer made a circuit that moves that F signal from the top of the head to the front. I built one. Using that, I got a straight decoding for QS for headphones.

Why would they be? They only have to work on headphones. They'll be binaural extractions from the spatial metadata.

But what is a "binaural extraction"? It is an encoding that works with the human ear. Since the ear can decode it, there should be an electronic way to decode it.

There are two ways to do a downmix: Straight combing and matrix encoding.

There are two ways to do an upmix: Designed panning and matrix decoding.

This ear decoding is essentially what dichophony is (above).

 

[JediJoker]

But what is a "binaural extraction"? It is an encoding that works with the human ear. Since the ear can decode it, there should be an electronic way to decode it.

But when you listen to a matrix encoded recording on headphones, it doesn't sound like you're being surrounded. It's not a psychoacoustic two-channel representation of the multichannel mix like a binaural encoding would be.

 

[furui_suterioo]

I already did it years ago. But I used my mixer-encoder to produce the test signals.

Benjamin Bauer did the SQ version of the tests. I did the QS version.


View attachment 75541

And Bauer made a circuit that moves that F signal from the top of the head to the front. I built one. Using that, I got a straight decoding for QS for headphones.



But what is a "binaural extraction"? It is an encoding that works with the human ear. Since the ear can decode it, there should be an electronic way to decode it.

There are two ways to do a downmix: Straight combing and matrix encoding.

There are two ways to do an upmix: Designed panning and matrix decoding.

This ear decoding is essentially what dichophony is (above).

What I mean is to find out what exactly the Atmos-headphone downmixer is doing to produce a rear channel effect, phase tricks? If so then the decoder should be able to pick up on that to some extent. Whether or not it decodes well, would still be interesting to see what happens on the Wurlyscope with 2ch-Atmos to QS decoding. If anyone has some headphone-Atmos test tones I would love to do some experimenting.

 

[Ninecats]

What’s more disappointing to me is the trend towards surround mixes being held hostage in $150 box sets. Given the choice, I’ll take streaming any day. The sound quality will catch up.

This.

 

[humprof]

It's not clear to me how the Dolby Atmos for Headphones renderer "renders" a binaural signal from existing Atmos metadata. Not a "downmix," strictly speaking, nor would it seem to use any kind of matrix encoding.
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/can-you-mix-dolby-atmos-on-headphones

 

[alansanchez86]

This came on my news feed today, although apparently this is from sep 2021, I hadnt read it before.

https://www.scvdistribution.co.uk/n...iRTyJC2MokNao6BbXFOiQZlwIoW3UsTVDh02n_1gxZLHc

 

[alansanchez86]

Stumbled across this article while browsing...
These are the guys that helped him with his studio. I didnt know that it used to be a barn and that he wanted to keep the ceiling heights.

https://sound-zero.com/case-studies/steven-wilson-recording-studio/

 

[Muppet69]

Stumbled across this article while browsing...
These are the guys that helped him with his studio. I didnt know that it used to be a barn and that he wanted to keep the ceiling heights.

https://sound-zero.com/case-studies/steven-wilson-recording-studio/

Really interesting article and that solo version of Last Chance is brilliant too. Thanks for posting.