Ambisonics: Useful in Post Production?

[seancostello]

Hi all,

Do any of you find Ambisonics useful, or not useful, in post-production? I've studied some of the theory (and published a paper for a B-format reverb), but am interested to see if people use Ambisonics in any music/video/film applications.

[Steven1145]

Here in France there are a few long-stanging fans of the system. I have mixed two features for which Gaël Nicolas did the sound design, and he is one of the most active Ambisonics guys over here.
He is one of the authors of the Surround Library , together with Dorian Darcourt.

I posted a bit on my blog about our work together on Derrière les murs, and to sum things up: Ambisonics can bring some very nice things to the mix. But when the soundfield starts to get crowded (lots of dialog and music on top of the ambience) I think it falls apart quite quickly. It is not a solution that can be used alone for a whole film, and I ended up asking for more "traditionnal" stereo sounds to prop up the surround sound field for heavy moments.

[seancostello]

Thanks for the reply, Steven. I used Google Translate on this link:

http://filmmixer.eu/WordPress/?p=33

It is interesting that the stereo sound recordings for environmental sounds were often more useful than the sources recorded in Ambisonics. This makes me think that some sort of signal processing would be useful to convert the information captured by B-Format Ambisonics into something that is more "robust" in a 5.1 or 7.1 environment.

Any other Ambisonics users/non-users?

Here's a link to my blog entry about an Ambisonics reverb paper I co-wrote with Joseph Anderson:

A reverb paper of mine just got published online

What I am interested in is the goals of Ambisonics, and the success/failure of Ambisonics in achieving those goals, versus the requirements of surround sound as it currently stands. The thread about envelopment in movie sound seems related. The goal of Ambisonics is to create a fully enveloping 3D sonic environment, but it seems like that is not necessarily the goal of motion picture / broadcast sound.

[aracu]

Originally Posted by seancostello

The goal of Ambisonics is to create a fully enveloping 3D sonic environment, but it seems like that is not necessarily the goal of motion picture / broadcast sound.

The goal of films with a substantial budget is, soundwise, to create a
3D sonic environement, but that is finally achieved through the way in which
all of the elements of the film are mixed.

An Ambisonic recording is generally thought of as a stereo or surround recording of one particular event, as opposed to many separate events that are recorded separately and then mixed together.

If a part of a film can benefit from being initially recorded in stereo or surround, it can be recorded with an ambisonic mic, a mid- side or double
mid- side array , or any other type of stereo or surround array.

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by aracu

The goal of films with a substantial budget is, soundwise, to create a
3D sonic environement, but that is finally achieved through the way in which
all of the elements of the film are mixed.

An Ambisonic recording is generally thought of as a stereo or surround recording of one particular event, as opposed to many separate events that are recorded separately and then mixed together.

If a part of a film can benefit from being initially recorded in stereo or surround, it can be recorded with an ambisonic mic, a mid- side or double
mid- side array , or any other type of stereo or surround array.

I am assuming you dont work in film viewing your statement- as it seems very aurally myopic. The job of those constructing a film soundtrack is to support the vision of the director- sometimes that might manifest itself in a highly immersive sonic landscape, and other times it might play from the center speaker. The goal however is to never bring attention to the sound so it distracts the viewers attention from the story itself.

these are really all JUST tools in our toolbox-

[aracu]

hare krishna !