I'm looking for a song that creatively uses the fact that a speaker setup is 5.1 (or something else) instead of the regular 2.0/mono

[realsmart987]

What songs do you know that used 5.1 speakers (or some other surround setup) in creative ways?  I temporarily have access to an expensive surround system in a music classroom and I want to use it to it's fullest.

 

The album "This Binary Universe" by BT is sort of what I'm looking for.  Sometimes sound came out of the left speaker, sometimes the front, sometimes only the front and back at the same time.  The songs themselves were interesting to.

[terrytek]

There's this one rap song I think it's called wamp to em by giggs (uk grime artist) and the beats kinda bounce from side to side. I can't really help much because I don't use true surround, just virtual surround that actually isn't too bad.

[TechyBen]

No idea as not done it myself, but some orchestral/band music in 5.1 you can figure out where the instrument is in the room.

 

(Is in 5.1)

 

[JZStudios]

So, Copeland did an album called Ixora, and a year or so later released a sister album named Ixora Twin. The idea was that you could use two sound systems to play them at exactly the same time to get a sort of "third" quadraphonic sound. I thought that was stupid and used Audacity to just map it to the front and rear speakers instead.

I could hook you up with it if you'd like. I've also been looking for good surround sound music files but haven't gotten a whole lot of luck. There is a site somewhere that houses digital DTS CDs you can purchase, but for some reason for the life of me I can't seem to find it.

 

May seem a silly question, but do you have any method of playing games in there? A laptop or console perhaps?

My two favorite games for surround sound so far (it's a limited selection right now) are The Witcher 3 and Horizon Zero Dawn, both of which are.... immaculate, and damn near flawless. Just the ambiance in either game is stunning, though while The Witchers is superbly recorded, I think there's a bit more going on in HZD. I wish I could just have that game run without combat just so I could listen to the ambiance. Wild animal calls (various types of birds) wind, rain, people chatting, the mechanical yet oddly natural sound of the machines... It's genuinely amazing, and the game is pretty as hell. If you own a PS4 I REALLY highly recommend it.

 

Edit* That Ixora album I have as a result is only quad as I mentioned, so no center and technically no sub, but the receiver should set the crossover to it anyways, but it's not a discrete thing. Minor issues, but just if you're interested.

[kilgore_T]

NIN - downward spiral 5.1 mix

[Guest Generallee]

Jean Michel Jarre made some albums in 5.1 mixing, it was pretty good

[RumSwift]

Pretty sure The Beatles made a 5.1 surround version of Lonely Hearts Club!

[Tcrumpen]

I don't think songs are produced in 5.1 often because that's not what the majority of people listen to them on. Most people listen to them on headphones/basic computer speakers, or a phone

 

FLAC files might be different though

[PlayStation 2]

This is going to sound very stupid, but you should try looking into shows that make use of 5.1 mixes creatively.

This is going to sound even more stupid, but I know some VeggieTales episodes actually do make use of 5.1 mixing pretty damn well.

[JZStudios]

4 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

This is going to sound very stupid, but you should try looking into shows that make use of 5.1 mixes creatively.

This is going to sound even more stupid, but I know some VeggieTales episodes actually do make use of 5.1 mixing pretty damn well.

Veggietales is never stupid.

Though I heard that Disney inexplicably bought them, so there goes that.

[JZStudios]

11 hours ago, TechyBen said:

No idea as not done it myself, but some orchestral/band music in 5.1 you can figure out where the instrument is in the room.

 

(Is in 5.1)

 

What confuses me is that they say it's a 5.1 mix, but I only seem to see Vimeo videos, which don't support Dolby Digital or... any form of surround on PC browsers. Not even sure if it supports it at all.

Edit* Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Vimeo doesn't support surround sound in any format, and that behind the scenes video is the only "5.1 mix" I can find. So unless the regular video was recorded in stereo and mixed in 5.1 and released as the standard, I have no idea where the 5.1 mix even is.

[TechyBen]

I guess you need to buy the 5.1 album/DVD/Bluray then.

 

[PlayStation 2]

52 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Veggietales is never stupid.

Though I heard that Disney inexplicably bought them, so there goes that.

Big Idea went bankrupt in 2003 and was sold to a company called Classic Media. They then sold off a lot of their companies and IPs to DreamWorks, which was bought out by NBC.

It's confusing.

[JZStudios]

5 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

I guess you need to buy the 5.1 album/DVD/Bluray then.

 

Can't even really find that. Any amount of OK GO 5.1/surround/Dolby Google result only shows that behind the scenes and then moves on to random "How to set up surround sound" links.

[TechyBen]

Just now, JZStudios said:

Can't even really find that. Any amount of OK GO 5.1/surround/Dolby Google result only shows that behind the scenes and then moves on to random "How to set up surround sound" links.

Maybe tweet to them?

[JZStudios]

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

Big Idea went bankrupt in 2003 and was sold to a company called Classic Media. They then sold off a lot of their companies and IPs to DreamWorks, which was bought out by NBC.

It's confusing.

Isn't NBC owned by Disney?

I'm just thinking that Veggietales was always a Christian kids show, so Dreamworks at least makes some sense, but I don't know why Disney would want it.

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, JZStudios said:

Isn't NBC owned by Disney?

I'm just thinking that Veggietales was always a Christian kids show, so Dreamworks at least makes some sense, but I don't know why Disney would want it.

Nah, that's Fox that's being bought out by Disney.

NBC's part of Comcast.

[JZStudios]

Just now, TechyBen said:

Maybe tweet to them?

I'm not a Tweeter. The other issue with a lot of the surround stuff is that most of it wants you to pay without being able to sample it first. I;'m just not big on paying for it to listen to it exactly once (Most likely) and move on with my life. Stereo music doesn't have this problem, but PC web browsers don't support surround sound (as I mentioned previously) Which is why I use a PS4 to watch Netflix, Hulu, and Prime since PC can't do it.

2 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Nah, that's Fox that's being bought out by Disney.

NBC's part of Comcast.

So, wait, NBC bought Dreamworks or the Veggietales IP?

[PlayStation 2]

2 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

So, wait, NBC bought Dreamworks or the Veggietales IP?

NBC bough DreamWorks which gave them the VeggieTales IP as DreamWorks owned it.

[JZStudios]

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

NBC bough DreamWorks which gave them the VeggieTales IP as DreamWorks owned it.

Man... Dreamworks makes me sad. At least they always tried new things I guess. Although I mostly only paid attention to their animated stuff.

[JZStudios]

So the site I tried to link before was this: https://dtsmusic.top

Which I guess is a decent database, but every download is through one of those crap downloader sites, so it limits you to 96KB/s download, 1000Mb size, and ONE download every 24 hours unless you want to pay. So to download a full album could not even kidding, take an entire week.

 

That's also not to mention that the site is intented to be for "educational" purposes so people can essentially try out albums before they buy, but at damn near an hour a song...

Anyways, point being that a large amount of surround music doesn't really make use of discrete channels, so the rears (and often even the center) are more used to play ambiance or reverb from the back of a stage, rather than really placing instruments/sounds around you. So you could spend essentially a day downloading something to try it out and be left underwhelmed.

This underwhelming type of surround mixing for music is why so many older folks think it's a waste of time, because in the 70's/80's when it started getting big and people were pushing it they didn't really have discrete channels or any way to properly record for them. It often led to Quadraphonic audio (and honestly I'm not even sure how that worked with vinyl.) which ended up being a pretty big disappointment in most instances. Nowadays however, we have the brilliance of Digital Audio and things like Dolby Atmos which can support 3D sound sources and a huge variety of speaker formats, yet most surround music follows in the shoes of slightly expanded stereo mixings.

 

The best example I have is a 5.1 DTS mix of Alan Parsons Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Probably procured through the site linked above) which is really only a "widened" stereo field with the center and surrounds being a faint representation of the front speakers. I was disappointed given how much of a recording genius Alan is, so I was hoping the surround mix would have discrete sources. I could toss that album over along with Ixora (A semi-proper Quadraphonic album) for comparison if you'd like.

[Compassionate Homicide]

I'm going to show my age here, but why not test to see if it supports quadraphonic?

[JZStudios]

2 hours ago, Compassionate Homicide said:

I'm going to show my age here, but why not test to see if it supports quadraphonic?

Test what to see if it supports quad?