New Order 'A Collection' "in 5.1 Surround Sound"

Now this is curious, an ad for 'A Collection' in today's NME says all the videos are in 5.1 surround... Does this mean someone has had to go back to all the multitrack master tapes to do new, surround mixes of the tunes?? Or is there another way of acheiving this with selective EQ, etc? I find it very hard to believe all the stereo masters are still in existence, let alone the multi tracks!

Doesn't bother me anyway, as I have no surround sound system, but even so - has someone really gone to the extent of re 'mixing' these for surround sound a la Orbital??

Andy

That's what the package says, but I haven't popped it in the DVD player yet.

Some early music DVDs claimed 5.1 sound but had little more than reverb from the rear channels. I expect these will be the same, although it would be nice to be proved wrong...

Highly doubtful anyone went back to the multitracks to remix in for 5.1. Most likely, it's been processed using crossover points and a sum and difference matrix to create a phantom center channel from a stereo source and then as mentioned above, reverb returns from the mix were probably added to create the rear channels. I'd have to hear it to be certain but that'd be my best guess.

Bentley wrote: Highly doubtful anyone went back to the multitracks to remix in for 5.1. Most likely, it's been processed using crossover points and a sum and difference matrix to create a phantom center channel from a stereo source and then as mentioned above, reverb returns from the mix were probably added to create the rear channels. I'd have to hear it to be certain but that'd be my best guess.

Understand the bit about reverb returns to the rear channels (kind of thing they did in 24 Hour Party People to make the studio recordings sound like live takes), but please, please explain "crossover points and a sum and difference matrix to create a phantom center channel from a stereo source" - it sounds sexy! What's it all about?

Andy

Can you hear guitars and vocals and stuff at the back, or just ambience?

It's only supposed to be ambience back there!

Mr Discography wrote:

Bentley wrote: Highly doubtful anyone went back to the multitracks to remix in for 5.1. Most likely, it's been processed using crossover points and a sum and difference matrix to create a phantom center channel from a stereo source and then as mentioned above, reverb returns from the mix were probably added to create the rear channels. I'd have to hear it to be certain but that'd be my best guess.

Understand the bit about reverb returns to the rear channels (kind of thing they did in 24 Hour Party People to make the studio recordings sound like live takes), but please, please explain "crossover points and a sum and difference matrix to create a phantom center channel from a stereo source" - it sounds sexy! What's it all about?

Andy

You take the sum of the stereo channels (L+R)+(L-R) to create the center thus nulling the information that is usually panned far left and right within a mix. Taking the difference gives you just the opposite and you're left with the audio that's usually not mixed up the center(this is also how those so called "vocal removers" work). It's also known as Mid-Side processing since you've now created both mono and stereo tracks from only a stereo source. You can then create crossovers with EQ to filter as needed or required for each channel. There are plug-ins available for this, harware processors, and I even thik somebody marketed a device, or program, to create surround mixes from a stereo source... Can't remember at the moment.

Aside from being a common microphone technique in recording, people use this trick when mastering to help problematic compression and equalization issues as well as help control the stereo image. Once you have it split up, increasing the volume of the side tracks makes a mix wider, while decreasing makes it less ambient, narrower and focused.

Chris

Bentley wrote:

Mr Discography wrote:

Bentley wrote: Highly doubtful anyone went back to the multitracks to remix in for 5.1. Most likely, it's been processed using crossover points and a sum and difference matrix to create a phantom center channel from a stereo source and then as mentioned above, reverb returns from the mix were probably added to create the rear channels. I'd have to hear it to be certain but that'd be my best guess.

Understand the bit about reverb returns to the rear channels (kind of thing they did in 24 Hour Party People to make the studio recordings sound like live takes), but please, please explain "crossover points and a sum and difference matrix to create a phantom center channel from a stereo source" - it sounds sexy! What's it all about?

Andy

You take the sum of the stereo channels (L+R)+(L-R) to create the center thus nulling the information that is usually panned far left and right within a mix. Taking the difference gives you just the opposite and you're left with the audio that's usually not mixed up the center(this is also how those so called "vocal removers" work). It's also known as Mid-Side processing since you've now created both mono and stereo tracks from only a stereo source. You can then create crossovers with EQ to filter as needed or required for each channel. There are plug-ins available for this, harware processors, and I even thik somebody marketed a device, or program, to create surround mixes from a stereo source... Can't remember at the moment.

Aside from being a common microphone technique in recording, people use this trick when mastering to help problematic compression and equalization issues as well as help control the stereo image. Once you have it split up, increasing the volume of the side tracks makes a mix wider, while decreasing makes it less ambient, narrower and focused.

Chris

You beat me to it, that's exactly what I was going to say.

If you use Pinnacle Studio 9 to produce DVD's you can specify surround sound as an output so I would imagine it's a fairly basic procedure on something a tad more expensive.